You guessed it folks, the festive season is upon us. The massive Christmas lights are up in Westfields, the red cups are back in Starbucks and Oxford street is heaving with tourists. (On a side note, I frequently find myself getting angry with tourists despite the fact that I have literally lived in London for nine weeks so I basically still am one. Is this allowed??)
I like a good list so thus commences the first list of the blog:
Reasons Why London at Christmas is Aces
Christmas lights everywhere. I was in Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherd’s Bush today and there are some seriously impressive Christmas lights up in there. I love Christmas lights. There’s also some up on Oxford Street, I haven’t seen them yet but Carnaby Street usually have some pretty cool ones, and of course, the fairy lights wrapped all around the trees at the Natural History Museum.
Free Starbucks. Ok this might just be where I live but sometimes the Starbucks on Gloucester Road are giving out free samples of their festive drinks as we walk to uni in the morning. It’s pretty exciting seeing as I can never justify spending so much money on hot drinks usually (you will learn that the cheapest place to drink anything, be it tea or alcohol, in South Kensington is on campus).
Public carol singing. Yesterday there were some people in uniforms with funny hats (I want to say they were the navy or something boat related) doing a spot of carol singing outside South Kensington tube, and there were also tiny primary school kids singing in the shopping centre today. I ALSO LOVE CAROLS. Which leads me to…
SO MANY CAROL SERVICES. I will have been to three carol services before I even go home for Christmas! Most churches in the area will hold a carol service at some point before term ends (at my one there was mulled wine and an abundance of Christmas cake), there’s also a big city-wide one for all students in London and Christians at Imperial organise another one (with free mince pies.). I seriously love the sense of awe you get from singing carols in a church surrounded by others with the smell of mulled wine and mince pies in the air.
Imperial Christmas parties. I think every department organises some kind of meal/ball/party for the end of term. I was a failure this year and didn’t get my ticket for the RCSU winter ball in time :'( but there is so much going on around now. As well as departmental stuff, we’ve also got a hall party lined up and there was a trip to go ice skating at the Natural History Museum last night!
And a pro has to be that you get to enjoy all this great stuff about Christmas at Imperial…. and then go home to peace and quite before the worst of the tourists descend 🙂
Stay festive friends! And have a picture of the fab Westfield Christmas lights
xxx
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