Now that the holidays are over and you’ve done the family thing – too much food, too much stress and too much chaos – it’s never too early to plan next year!
This holiday my daughter and I canceled Christmas (we actually postponed it; we’re not that callous) and traveled across the pond to celebrate.
Christmas in London is crazy, crowded, loud and fun. Everywhere you go the stores try to outdo each other with window displays and the streets are filled with seasonal lights and Mariah Carey blasting from every pedicab.
Regent Street and Oxford Street are shoppers’ mecca, and we hit every store in town – Harrods, Selfridge’s, Marks & Spencer, Primark and Marks & Spencer again… and again.
Gifts, goodies and our annual Christmas candle were on the list. Those who know me know I pack an extra suitcase to drag to London!
Home base this year was a new hotel, as our old favorite was under renovation. We actually have a new favorite in The Mandeville, tucked in between Mayfair and Marylebone. Its main draw was its walking distance to Bond Street and Regent Street. Plus, being just five minutes from a tube stop makes it the perfect central location.
This boutique hotel had large rooms (a necessity for two women with four suitcases and lots of shopping bags), lovely amenities and God bless the Brits, a deep tub!
They gave us the room with the lighted Christmas tree right outside our window so we were totally in the holiday spirit!
Their breakfast buffet was included and offered a huge choice of breakfast items. They also offered what looked like a lovely afternoon tea and a Christmas dinner, but we had made other plans.
When I was a student at Cambridge years ago, British food was an oxymoron. Truly awful mixed grill of meat, potatoes and more potatoes.
It’s come into its own, and we carefully had planned our dining out to visit as many of our favorites as we could in one week!
Our first stop was Dishoom Covent Garden for their Bombay cuisine. While we had made a reservation, the line trailing down the block was a testament to how popular this restaurant has become. We craved the special lamb dish they offer, as each location has their own chef specialty and we couldn’t stop thinking about this biryani dish since our last visit. That along with prawns, ruby chicken, samosas and a chocolate pudding with chili ice cream, we were in heaven.
After dinner we hit the Covent Garden market to sit in the courtyard and listen to an opera singer while having an after-dinner drink.
The gorgeously rustic Maggie Jones had reopened after a fire, so we got traditional British cuisine one night, with Stilton mousse, roast rump of lamb, cabbage and a bread and butter pudding to fill us up.
We did a lot more than eat and shop!
London is theatre, and so many of the plays on offer we’d seen in Los Angeles, so we laughed and went to see Paddington. No lie, it was such a fabulous production and great story I absolutely loved it more than the will-go-unnamed play I’d just seen in L.A. Plus they gave us a goodie box that naturally had to include a marmalade sandwich and a drink of choice.
Tip: Get the marmalade martini!
I snuck in a quick visit to The National Portrait Gallery, one of my favorite stops every trip. I spent just a few hours at the gorgeous Cecil Beaton exhibit viewing his photographs and costume designs for Gigi and My Fair Lady.
A day trip to Oxford was a treat for the train ride itself through the countryside. Just an hour outside of London, we took a tour of the Bodleian Library. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is not only a culturally and historically important site, but still serves as the main library for Oxford University. Our 60-minute tour with an amazingly knowledgeable guide showed us the gorgeous old rooms, but also gave us highlights of those that have studied and written there, including Oscar Wilde, J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis.
The library holds over 13 million books and manuscripts, from antique tomes that are secured by chains to the bookshelves to modern classics. It is primarily a research library used by students and scholars from all over the world.
The library is so gorgeous it has been used as a backdrop for many films, including Harry Potter, X-Men and A Discovery of Witches.
Just outside of Oxford is Blenheim Palace, where Winston Churchill was born. The palace was decorated for the holidays but you could see the bones of the impressive structure and gilded state rooms underneath all the decor. Blenheim has become a popular Christmas spot as they not only deck out the mansion each season in a magical theme (this year was Wizard of Oz), but adorn the gardens with a festive light display and Christmas market. The best part of our visit was the Churchill exhibit in the basement, showcasing a timeline from his birth in the library there through his war years and time as prime minister.
The expansive grounds are also gorgeous, but the inclement weather had us regrettably missing the maze.
Another exhibit of “Servants’ Tales” was like walking through the kitchen of Downtown Abbey. It told the stories, lives, workloads and scandals of the servants toiling above at the palace. Worth the hour train ride out of London to see.
No visit to London is complete without high tea, and The Ritz offered a special Christmas edition with carolers and special treats. A meal in itself, we took an afternoon off and enjoyed our tea sandwiches, scones and pastries. They brought us so much we saved it for our Christmas Day picnic!
A tradition in Britain is the Sunday roast. We booked the Savoy Grill for our repast, and enjoyed Gordon Ramsay’s classic British cuisine – Beef Wellington for Kate and the dry-aged sirloin with Yorkshire pudding for me. Along with a Buck’s Fizz (basically a mimosa) we enjoyed fine dining for an afternoon.
Brits respect their heritage and so many of their great old buildings are re-purposed into something new – while keeping the old. The Booking Office at St. Pancras station is a restaurant and bar that was indeed the old train station booking office, and all the old ticket windows still line the back of the bar. At 5:05 pm every night, a bartender makes and lights up a rum punch and everyone gets a free drink. The tradition honors the opening of the St. Pancras Hotel on May 5, 1873.
Another fun find is Cahoots, a bar situated in an abandoned tube station. The 1940’s-themed bar offers up live music, spirits and souvenir ceramic mugs of Queen Elizabeth, Vera Wang and Winston Churchill.
Our last meal was at one of our favorites – Cafe Murano. Angela Hartnett has several locations serving her fresh, seasonal Italian cuisine, with homemade pasta and absolutely some of the world’s best olive oil (we had to buy a bottle to bring home). With good red wine, arancini and pasta under our belts, we were ready to close out our London holiday.
Pretty much everything closes down Christmas Day, so for our last afternoon we planned a picnic in Hyde Park before carol service at Westminster Abbey. With snacks from Marks & Spencer and our Ritz pastries, we joined the throngs of Londoners walking the park before sitting down to their Christmas dinner.
On Boxing Day we loaded up our suitcases with goodies and memories to bring home and actually celebrate Christmas on New Year’s with the family. We are already planning next year’s holiday getaway – though we promised everyone we’d be home for Christmas Day 2026!
