Best Christmas Events in London for 2024 hand picked by our editors

Christmas at Kew has become a key date in London’s festive calendar, with a humongous light trail taking over the 300-acre botanic garden. See the space lit up with larger-than-life illuminations, with both the venue’s glass houses and the trees that cover its grounds drenched in different hues. The whole thing is stunning, but don’t miss the lake, where you’ll catch reflections of the vibrant bulbs dancing on the water, taking the magical feeling to another level.  Keep yourself toasty along the way with warming winter snacks and make sure you pop by the grotto to say hi to Father Christmas himself.

Somerset House’s iconic ice rink has become a Christmas tradition for Londoners and visitors heading to the capital for some festive cheer. There’s good reason – gliding (or, at least, attempting to) around the rink, gazing upon the Georgian architecture and 40ft Christmas tree feels like you’ve skated onto a movie set, ready to be watched by families settling in for their post-turkey food coma. We’d recommend visiting for one of its Skate Lates series, where you can glide around to a soundtrack by DJs including Rinse FM, Daytimers’ Rohan Rakhit, Dankie Sounds, and Jay Jay Revlon. 

Find more places to go ice skating in London

Each year, Hyde Park gets transformed from pretty park to Winter Wonderland. The annual favourite returns in 2024 for its seventeenth year, bringing a sleigh-load of festive fun with it. As you make your way around the space, you’ll find fairground rides, a child-friendly Santa Land (including Santa’s Grotto, where presents may be waiting) and traditional Christmas markets where you’ll be able to buy gifts for all your loved ones. Other highlights include circuses and, of course, the biggest outdoor ice rink in the UK. It surrounds the Victorian bandstand and is lit up by more than 100,000 lights – if that doesn’t get you feeling festival, nothing will, especially as your ears will be full of Christmas tunes as you glide around the ice. There’s also the Real Ice Slide and ice scultpting workshops, so get ready to get frosty. Warm yourself up later with frothing steins at the German-style Bavarian Village.

Classical music impresario Raymond Gubbay presents his annual handpicked selection of music for the festive season. Highlights include the Christmas carol singalong (Dec 17), Love Actually with live orchestra (Dec 21), Beethoven's Ninth (Dec 28), the music of Zimmer vs Willimas (Dec 31), and the New Year's Day Proms. All set to take place in the Barbican's lovely hall, these musical picks are a classy, Christmassy way to spend an evening. 

What’s more Christmassy than visiting Santa’s grotto? Going for a pint or two with the man in red in his favourite boozer, of course. Humbug, an immersive Christmas dive bar, allows you to do just that – and join Mr Claus in rounds of games, sing-a-longs, live performances, storytelling and more. It’s all threaded together with a mission to cheer a weary Santa up and help him rekindle his Christmas spirit. Humbug’s 2024 return will include a shrine to the queen of Christmas Mariah Carey, a beer can bowling alley, a grotto and cabaret from the venue’s regular cast. Saving the festive season never sounded so fun.

Dennis Severs’ House – aka the ornate Huguenot house that sits on a Spitalfields backstreet – is a real-life time capsule. Part museum and part art piece, its rooms are still decorated in the manner of a family home between 1724 and 1914. Each Christmas, it becomes a seasonal hotspot and visitors are greeted with gingerbread figures and figgy pudding mix laid out in the 18th-century kitchen, Christmas trees wrapped up in decorations and a lavish holiday feast set out on the dining room table. Book an after-dark ‘Silent Night’ tour to see it glowing with candlelight, but be warned – all tours sell out very quickly. You can visit the house without the need to book on some days – check the website for updates.

If hunkering down in the dark of the cinema watching movies sounds like the perfect way to get amped up for Christmas, then boy does the Prince Charles Cinema have a programme for you. This year, its festive slate is so jam-packed, you could spend every day from the start of December until Christmas Eve watching its screens, watching everything from the very seasonal ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’, ‘Home Alone’, ‘Scrooged’ and ‘Elf’. If Christmas movies aren’t quite your thing, there’s plenty else on offer, too, from ‘The French Connection’ and ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ to ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Citizen Kane’. For the full list of screenings visit here. 

The Julian Clary show – aka the Palladium panto – rolls back into town for another Christmas, with the smutty comedy legend and firmly established star of the whole thing taking on the role of the eponymous moralist bandit, opposite national treasure Jane MacDonald as Maid Marion. Elsewhere, regulars Paul Zerdin, Nigel Havers, Charlie Stemp and Rob Madge return, plus there’s some new blood in the shape of West End stars Marisha Wallace and Tosh Wanogho-Maud. The show tends to feel a lot more like a series of turns than a coherent story, but that kind of befits the Palladium, and Clary’s astonishingly near-to-the-knuckle humour really is something to behold.

RECOMMENDED: Find more London Christmas pantos

Father Christmas is getting some posh new digs this festive season in a grotto experience that will tick the boxes for kids and adults alike. He’ll take up residence at Anya Hindmarch’s Village store in Chelsea, where visitors will be guided through a wintry wonderland of candy cane forests and icicle caves. When they make it to their destination, they’ll be rewarded with a festive story by the fire and a gift from Saint Nick. Grown-ups get a free hot drink from the Anya Cafe, where there will be piles of mince pies, gingerbread men and Christmas cakes on sale. Exit through the gift shop to buy limited-edition Anya Hindmarch gifts and Christmas decorations, including ceramic tree baubles, crackers, puzzles, mugs, crayons and teddy bears. 

Spitalfields always gets in the festive spirit come Christmas time and 2024 is no exception. As well as all the usual stalls, stocking stuffers, and toasty food and drinks, there’ll be special discounts, advent calendars and late-night shopping so you can squeeze in some present-buying after work. If scouring the stands gets too much, head to 30 Spital Square to catch Wildefolk Theatre’s family-friendly adaptation of classic winter tale The Overcoat. 

Opening Dates: November 26

Best For: Stylish stocking stuffers

Get yourself feeling ridiculously festive with an evening of carols inside Sir Christopher Wren’s architectural masterpiece, aka St Paul’s Cathedral. The legendary London landmark hosts a series of mostly free and unticketed carol concerts each year, alongside a couple of ticketed charity gigs raising money for charity. Visit over December for a huge range of concerts, including family-friendly services, Handel's Messiah, and traditional carols. The big events to look out for are A Celebration of Christmas (Dec 12) and the Christmas Carol Service (Dec 23 and 24). The concerts are always hugely popular, so get down there early and be prepared to queue. Start practising your high notes now. You can find full information here. 

One of London’s quirkiest Christmas traditions as well as being one of the oldest, the Peter Pan Cup has been contested on Christmas mornings since 1864. Strictly a spectator event – unless you happen to be a regular, not to mention hardy, member of the Serpentine Swimming Club – the name of the 100-yard swimming race in Hyde Park’s lido derives from the 1904 edition, when author and playwright Sir James Barrie presented the trophy to the winner. The race commences at 9am so head down to watch the brave folk go for it before you start opening your presents.

This Christmas will be the twenty-fifth Hackney Empire panto since the iconic East London venue turned back into a theatre after a stint as a bingo hall, and well over half of those productions (17 to be precise) have involved Clive Rowe, who is back for 2025 as director and as London’s most iconic dame. There’s no other casting announced yet, though Hackney rarely casts celebrities and tends to have a posse of regulars (comedian Kat B inevitably features). There’s no word on how the timeless tale of Dick and his cat will be interpreted, though the Hackney panto tends to have a good-natured local focus and a real sense of grounding in east London.

’Tis the season for rampant consumerism, but if all the covetable clobber, shiny new tech and luxury knick-knacks are failing to fill the void, you’d do well to swing by the Choose Love store during your Christmas shopping spree. First set up in 2017 by Help Refugees, the clever pop-up doesn’t peddle fancy beauty products or the latest trainers. Instead, its shelves are filled with emergency blankets, children’s shoes, sleeping bags, toiletries, mobile phone credit, nappies, education supplies and other essentials needed by refugees around the world. Once you’ve bought what you can, the products are distributed via more than 80 projects that the humanitarian aid organisation works with across the globe. After several successful years on nearby Carnaby Street, the pop-up is moving into a department store-sized space on Regent Street for its biggest ever edition this year. Head down to check out a beautifully-designed space filled with thought-provoking installations from the Empathy Museum, to meet the usual roster of surprise celebrity volunteers working on the tills, and to do your bit to spread some Christmas cheer to those who need it most.

London boasts some impressive backdrops to its ice rinks, but few are as steeped in history as Hampton Court Palace. As you slip and slide around the ice, you can gaze up at Henry VIII’s sixteenth-century pad and wonder what he’d make of all this, or just keep your eye out for any of the palace’s rumoured ghosts. Even better, this rink is next to the Thames, so you can pretend you’re gliding down the river as you skate. As well as imagination-fuelling, the spot is also family-friendly, with skate aids available for kids if you book in advance. Head to the café after to warm up with hot chocolate, mulled wine and mince pies.

Opening times: 9:30am-9pm

Price: £18-£21; child £13-£15.50

Got a thirst for adventure and winter-themed alcoholic drinks? Up at The O2 – the entertainment centre’s dare-devil tour that lets you climb up the outside of the famous white dome (strapped into a harness, of course) – has been given a festive makeover. All climbers will get to retreat into an immersive snow globe after reaching the 52m-high summit. Inside your promised falling snow, the sweet smell of cookies and a ‘whimsical winter set-up’ to enjoy looking out at the stonking views of the city from. There’ll also be gingerbread cookies to snack on and glasses of bubbly. 

There are few venues as Christmassy as Royal Albert Hall – its iconic music hall evokes memories of Decembers past in chilly church halls, listening to organs play and choirs sing, no matter what time of year you visit. Stopping by ahead of Christmas, then, is a guaranteed way to get yourself in a festive mood and what better event to attend than one of its sing-along carol services. Warm up your pipes and practice your keys, even the most tone-deaf among us won’t be able to help joining in.

The sport of curling – the one you watch on telly during the Olympics and find curiously engaging – is coming to London. The Curling Club will be taking up residence in both the Southbank Centre and The Shack in Twickenham, bringing ‘epic apres nightlife’ along with it. Both venues will be given a proper apres-ski makeover with wintry cocktails, Alpine-inspired street food and entertainment on hand, alongside an opportunity to try your hand at the ‘short form’ version of the game under the expert tutelage of Team GB Skip and four-time Olympian Eva Muirhead OBE.  

Choosing just which grotto in London to meet Santa in can be hard, but London Zoo might just have the edge. Where else can you shake hands with the big guy and then go off and meet some of Mother Earth’s cutest creatures? This year, kids can take part in special Christmas crafts activities before they’re introduced to the man, the myth, the legend himself in his cosy grotto and receive a special gift to remember the day by. An audience with the man in red will cost extra, but the zoo’s other seasonal attractions – including a giant animal advent calendar, Christmas-themed animal talks and marshmallow toasting– will be open through to January.

If you’re one of those people who adamantly argues that Die Hard is absolutely a ‘Christmas movie’, or simply someone who relishes the opportunity to revisit some classics over the festive period, then you’ll love this festive film season at the BFI Southbank. It features an eclectic programme of movies few would seriously argue are Christmas films, but which all feature at least one scene set during the December holiday period. There’s all sorts on here, from cult queer films like John Waters’ Female Trouble and Sean Baker’s 2015 trans comedy-drama Tangerine to classic gangster hit Goodfellas, the Ryuichi Sakamoto-soundtracked war film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, Kubrick thriller Eyes Wide Shut and feel-good period pieces Carol and Little Women. Or, if your favourite thing to do during the Christmas holidays is nap on the sofa in between TV Gold comedy classics, there’s the ever-popular New York rom com When Harry Met Sally and Monty Python’s Life of Brian, both of which will feature introductions from the BFI’s film experts. Check out the full programme here. 

Curling has been growing in popularity in recent years, nudged on by its compelling showings at various Winter Olympics, and you can try your hand at it in King’s Cross this winter. This pop-up outdoor arena boasts six synthetic curling lanes, on which you can curl your heart out for 45 minutes before rewarding yourself with a tasty cocktail at the Curling Club bar. Last year’s 90s theme is being replaced by bright neons, with Walthamstow’s God’s Own Junkyard recreating their warehouse in the bar. Booking opens on October 11.

The annual Gingerbread City exhibition has become one of London’s best Christmas attractions. The sweetest festive event you’ll find, it tasks leading architects and designers to use their building know-house and ditch their conventional building materials for dough bricks and sugar paste mortar. Expect over 70 gingerbread buildings, everything from doughy houses, train stations, markets, museums, schools and parks – making up impressive, tiny biscuit cities. This year the theme is ‘Recycled City’, with all the sugary buildings designed in ways that show how recycling can be innovative and exciting. There’ll also be daily gingerbread house-building workshops (£90). Prepare for a feast for the eyes, but resist the urge to nibble! 

The Charles Dickens Museum has an obvious right to go fully festive come December, and this year they'll be marking the season with special events and performances. The house will be decorated especially for the season and guests can book for costumed tours (Nov 13, 20, 27 and Dec 4) and after-dark Magic Lantern Shows (Nov 30 & Dec 1). Performances and readings of 'A Christmas Carol' are also available to book. The museum's annual Christmas Eve event offers carol singing, theatrical performances, Christmas pudding-making, readings and lots of mulled cider. Booking is recommended! 

Find more great ways to enjoy Christmas in London

There are many things to enjoy about immersive theatre company The Lost Estate’s dinner theatre Dickens adaptation The Great Christmas Feast. There’s also quite a bit to fault – to a large extent logistical problems that may or may not be ironed out later in the run.

At its core this is a one man plus musicans take on A Christmas Carol that pays homage to Dickens’s own famed solo performances: stiffed by the feeble Victorian copyright laws, he devoted much of his later years – and health – to spectacularly entertaining one-man readings of his work. The Taylor Swift of his day, maybe. 

In The Great Christmas Feast we’re cast as a specially invited audience, who Dickens (Alex Phelps) has brought over to his gaff for dinner and his solo performance of A Christmas Carol. Phelps’s full pelt, unselfconscious performance is good fun, and is occasionally nudged into something really quite sublime by the accompanying violinists and percussionists.  Stefan Rees’s music brings an elegant, sonorous majesty to proceedings that easily compensates for the lack of the usual phantasmagorical special effects. Sat at restaurant-style tables that circle the small raised central performance space, everyone had a good view and there’s a genuine sense of intimacy between audience and performer.

The problems come with the food service – the modern British-styled cuisine is pleasant, but it takes a very long time to be served to some parts of the room, and the show really loses momentum between the second and third acts. Hopefully it’s something that will be addressed as the run continues – some real love and care has gone into the performance and the music.

There’s a Bavarian flavour to Kingston Christmas Market, so much so you might be fooled into thinking you’ve stumbled through a portal into Germany. As you shop its many stalls, you can keep you energy up with bratwurst and mulled wine or take a pit stop at the Bavarian curling lanes. Live music and Christmas carol singers will also soundtrack the activities to really get you in the mood for Yuletide.

Opening Dates: December 7

Best For: Raising your festive spirit

Returning for its third winter, thisd picture-perfect ice-skating pop-up in the shadow of the rejuvenated Battersea Power Station might well be the coolest (in more ways than one.) Returning to its usual spot right next to the Thames, it offers magnificent views and all the fun of the fair (literally, there’s a fairground right beside it) right next to the landmark. The 30ft Christmas tree that sits twinkling right in the middle of the rink only adds to the stunning scenes here, making this the perfect date night, Xmas party location or a well-earned reward after a day of gift shopping.

Opening times: Mon-Fri 11am-9pm; Sun 10am-10pm

Price: From £16; child from £10.50

Santa is sprucing up his Hamleys grotto this year, extending the festive fun to include a brand new elf workshop. Not only will you get to meet and greet Saint Nick himself, you’ll also get to rub shoulders with the hard-working elves that make his Christmas gift-giving possible. Of course, you won’t leave the grotto empty-handed – Santa and his little helpers will send you off with some of their handiwork to take home when your time in their company is up. Tickets go on sale on October 10. Santa’s preferred age of visitor is between 2 and 8 years old, but the whole family can tag along too. One ticket (from £55) guarantees entry for three people, and it’s £15 for each additional person, with a maximum of six allowed in each slot. 

This Christmas, an estimated 9.3 million people in the UK will face hunger and hardship. While most of us tuck into their turkeys, some parents will be unable to treat their children, or choose to go hungry themselves so their loved ones can eat. They’re strange stats to mention in a review of a Christmas show, but ones playwright Chris Bush clearly wants us to think of with Robin Hood and the Christmas Heist, as she plays into the whole ‘robbing from the rich to give to the poor’ aspect of the Nottingham folk tale

Sure, there are more mentions of anarcho-socialism than your average festive production, but musicals with political bite are what we've come to expect from the Standing at the Sky’s Edge writer. Yet for all the show's focus on privilege and power, director Elin Schofield prevents her Robin Hood from feeling like a sermon. The production is a little overstuffed, but it makes for an enjoyable evening of theatre: one that’ll make you think, not just feel festive.

Against the icy tones and natural details of Anisha Fields’s set, we’re introduced to the inhabitants of Sherwood Forest, all dressed in muted tones and textured fabrics befitting a Toast catalogue. Robin (Matthew Ganley) and his Marian (Emma Manton) reside in the woods, looking after the local children – played by the Rose’s Youth Theatre company – amid the bitter chill of winter. They’d do anything to keep the kids happy and warm, even if it means sacrificing their own food.

Usually, the people of Sherwood are offered some respite at an annual Christmas feast held at the castle. But the newly appointed Sheriff of Nottingham – Andrew Whitehead, having the most fun on stage as a cartoonish, Henry VIII-like figure – informs them that there won’t be a feast for these ‘various ragamuffins’ this year. ‘Cutbacks all round’, he shrugs; plus, Prince John (Louis McKillop) is coming to Sherwood to hunt on St Stephen’s Day instead. So Robin and his gang devise a plan: to stage a heist when the Prince arrives, and steal his treasure for the people.

The plot might seem convoluted, but Bush’s script gives room for both pithy asides and lessons. The funniest material isn’t just reserved for the adult actors, either. At the performance I attended, it was the Blue cast of the young ensemble, and it was clear that Schofield had spent time and effort working on comic delivery and timing with the young performers.

In comparison, the adult actors-musicians sometimes feel like an afterthought, there to deliver exposition, play their instruments and facilitate the young actors, but do little else. There’s a limpness to the performances (with the exception of scene-stealer Whitehead), and the solo singing is at times pretty pitchy. Bush’s lyrics and Matt Winkworth’s score smartly interpolate classic Christmas songs, from ‘Carol of the Bells’ to ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’, and sound best when the entire company can harmonise together.

There are too many plates spinning for the production to feel fully coherent. Streamlined, it would really shine. When a stunning life-size puppet of an elderly stag with a red glowing nose – fittingly named Rudolph and designed by Little Angel Theatre – appears on stage, it is a joy to watch the young cast work together with impressive detail to make it move. Yet Rudolph only appears in the show briefly; I’d have liked to have seen it featured more heavily, or the youth company to work with more puppets, even. Sometimes, you need a little breathing room to figure out what’s working and what isn’t. Given this, I think Robin Hood could transform from a light festive treat into something truly memorable.

This review of the show is from 2014. Raymond Briggs's 'Father Christmas' returns to the Lyric for Christmas 2024, as it does every Christmas.

This Lyric Christmas staple brings Raymond Briggs’s ‘Father Christmas’ to enchanting life. The author of ‘The Snowman’ is known for his beautiful depictions of the season – and this adaptation by theatre company Pins and Needles is equally charming.
 
Zoe Squire’s hand-painted set has an old-school appeal to it, complete with gorgeous wooden animal puppets by Max Humphries. Santa’s sleigh is a spectacle: his huge reindeers gallop through the dry ice that slowly fills the stage. And the twinkling fake snow gives a truly chilly atmosphere.
 
In an original twist, Kate Adams performs the music and sound effects live on stage, perched in an attic-style room above the action. She rattles maracas when Father Christmas (Vic Llewellyn) shakes salt on his breakfast, whistles when the kettle boils and becomes a well-spoken radio voice reporting snowy weather.

In the spirit of the book it’s based on, Llewellyn – who’s the spitting image of Briggs’s drawing – is a rather grumpy Santa, moaning about the ‘bloomin’ cold’ and ‘bloomin’ chimneys’ as he performs his Christmas duties.
 
All good, but although you’d hardly expect a complex plot in a play for the under-sixes, the complete lack of storyline means it’s not really going to be that stimulating for accompanying adults and older children. A large section of the play is simply Father Christmas’s morning routine, and the focus throughout is very much on sounds and sights. There are a couple of comic moments; a little bit of toilet humour always goes down well with little ones, and when Father Christmas falls over slapstick-style the kids have a good giggle. But it’s certainly not going to keep them – or you – laughing from start to finish.
 
That said, it is a lovely bit of staging, and will definitely put the kids in a Christmassy mood as they wait for the big day.

RECOMMENDED: More Christmas shows in London 

Find more festive fun with our guide to Christmas in London

The Southbank Centre is shining a light on some great artworks this winter – literally. In its annual Winter Lights exhibition, the institution will be bringing a selection of pieces to the streets surrounding the venue. Everything on display uses light and colour to dive into topics like identity, environment and tech, making it both an attention-grabbing and thought-provoking exhibit.

Among the works you’ll be able to see at this free exhibition are ‘We Rise By Lifting Others’ by Marinella Senatore, which highlights the power of collectivity and community, and Jakob Kvist’s ‘Dichroic Sphere’, a geodesic dome that is illuminated by only one single energy-efficient light bulb, but is still lit up in various colours.

Why not combine your visit with a trip to Southbank Centre’s Winter Market?

Find out all about London’s other massive festive light shows.