Advertisement
Published: September 5th 2007
Christmas in Trafalgar Square
There were carols in the Sqaure every evening for almost a month. The singing and the tree and the happiness transformed the Square. Always an interesing place, during December the atmosphere was magical.In the UK, the 'silly season' comes upon everyone with such a vengeance you have no choice but to capitulate, and celebrate all month long. (Argh - it is September as I publish this entry - it will soon be happening again!) The first signs were of course put up well in advance - Harrods famously opens its Christmas Store with one hundred days to go, and thus begins the countdown. The big stores on Oxford Street are all lit up by the end of October at the very latest, and by mid November the Christmas Lights tourists pop up at dusk all over town. In the midst of all the craziness, 2006 brought me no fewer than
Seven Days of Christmas. The first day of Christmas: December 2nd, VIP day on Oxford Street.
On the 2nd, VIP stood for Very Important Pedestrian, and one of the most notoriously clogged streets in the world was duly blocked off for an entire Saturday afternoon. Despite knowing it would be chaotic, the day was beautifully clear, crisp and cold, and Emma and I headed along because we couldn’t resist the chance to walk
up the middle of Oxford Street. (Small pleasures!)
Good enough to eat
Stacks of decorations in the Harrods Christmas Store - a veritable wonderland of the coloured, the glittery, the jewelled, the expensive and the downright bizarre. Traffic was re-routed to allow a sort of carnival of consumerism to take place, although many people were there as much for the atmosphere as for the shops. We passed Santas, charity bands, stilt walkers, competitions and street performers on our way from Marble Arch up to Oxford Circus. On our way we searched for presents for others and ourselves in the stores, all of which had mascots and signholders outside trying to draw as many customers through their doors as possible.
The whole street was jammed with shoppers, and over it all, three enormous white balloons were tethered in the middle of Oxford Circus. Just as we got to the intersection to see what on earth the strange installation was, etheral music wafted out of the speakers around us, and the balloons rose into the air, lifting three aerial dancers skywards. Standing in a huge crowd in the middle of a normally hectic intersection, watching ballons drift twisting, white-clad, fur hatted women high above our heads was certainly surreal!
We investigated Regent Street as well, and then walked back homewards throught the dusk, rating the Christmas lights. We decided that Regent Street's film tie-in display featuring the
Flushed Away characters was sadly lacking, while Oxford Street's lights were pretty but too sparse. St Christopher's Place had the best street lights by far. For store frontage, no-one could go past the red blanket Debenhams had created - although their sign laying claim to the whole season was rather OTT.
The second day of Christmas: December 10th, Julia’s Christmas Cocktails.
Jules is the ultimate party organiser, and her cocktail party was a welcome start to the festive season. It was great to see so many familiar faces, some of whom I hadn't known were in London, or vice-versa. I think between us all, we had just about every cocktail ingredient ever recorded, so some incredible concoctions resulted, all to the sounds of Christmas hits past and present.
Some extremely belated hugs and congratulations are due to Bex and Nige, who got engaged ages ago now, and who I saw at the party even though I, out of touch as I am, hadn't even known they were in London. They will be heading home Christmas 2007, and will celebrate their wedding the summer of 2008. I send them the bestest possible wishes, for a truly lovely couple.
Lunch is served
The vast underground cavern which serves as the BBC canteen rang to the sound of popping crackers for two days, while from the serving hatches the most wonderful festive food poured forth. The third day of Christmas: December 13th, Christmas Lunch.
This banquet took place in the unlikely arena of the BBC staff canteen, where a special Christmas lunch was on offer for two days. I availed myself for a big plate of seasonal fare, and the others joined in the cracker pulling. I was intrigued to find that Brussels Sprouts are traditional Christmas fare in Britain - I guess despite the winter weight meals we scoff at home, there are more differences than we realise.
The crackers looked very festive, piled up on all the tables, and soon we were surrounded by mini packs of cards and other suitably junky loot. We were all most intrigued by the feelings fish, which caimed to be able to diagnose various aspects of people's personalities. Made of thin cellophane-like stuff, you held it on the palm of your hand and watched as the warmth of your skin made it shiver or roll up, then compared its movements to the little chart. None of us turned out to have very likeable traits - according to the fish we were a fickle, deceptive and greedy bunch. Maybe (seeing as he was made in China)
Buskers outside Selfridges
In the middle of the road on the Oxford Street VIP Day. Little pockets of musicians could be found all the way up the road - and sometimes they could even be heard above the crowd! he was calibrated wrongly for Europeans?
The fourth day of Christmas: December 16th, the Great Christmas Sausage Sizzle
Organised by a homesick Aussie, lamenting that if she were at home, she would be at the beach, we picnicked. Lauren invited everyone to attend her sausage sizzle, and though there was a lack of sand we weren't short of all the best picnic items, feasting with soft drinks, burgers, chips and dip (none of your 'crisps' here!) and of course sausages. It didn't matter that it was cold and raining outside. Lauren had decorated the lounge, the Kiwis wore their jandals, the Aussies wore their thongs, and everyone talked about Christmas in the sun.
The fifth day of Christmas: December 18th, the BBC Vision Christmas Party.
Considering the Vision branch encompasses most of the building I worked in, there were in excess of four thousand invitees - so we were expecting it to be big when we turned up, but expectations were gloriously surpassed. Apparently this was the best party they have ever thrown, much louder, grander and with more food and drink than in previous years. It was certainly impressive - held in a huge marquee in the
The balloons go up
A procession of Santas ambles by, as the aerial dancers are lifted up over Oxford Circus. middle of Battersea Park, the theme was Studio 54. There was a starry ceiling, a neon dance floor, and open bar with more potent but badly shaken cocktails than you could shake a stick at. The food was pretty good, and included a chocolate fountain, which I quickly became obsessed with, and which shall now be my party yardstick.
Emma and I had glammed ourselves up at her place, and arrived to find some of the guys already there (and stuck in to the drink.) The stringent security promised by the invitation emails was remarkably easy to circumvent, and several past employees managed to join us for a riot of an evening. We danced, talked, drank and some of us participated in teh more interesteing activities on the menu - Alex cleaned up at the roulette wheel, but promptly lost all his chips again as soon as he realised they were not exchangeable for any form of cash. Marc attempted to take him on at the toilet racing - laps of a motorised loo in an inflatable course. Straight afterwards, I was pipped at the po by Sam - who knew toilets were so difficult to steer? After a
Suspended
Drifting above Oxford Circus, between H&M and Topshop. bit of dancing we all took a turn on the Waltzer outside. Whizzing around and up and down, with disoriented workmates all around you has never been so much fun. The whole eveing was a brilliant success as far as we were concerned, the only disappointment - probably an organisational plot to save the almighty pound - was that it was Monday night, and work the next day beckoned. This forced
some of us to go a bit easier and retire a little earlier than we might have otherwise, but a good time was had by all.
The sixth day of Christmas: December 19th, the Support Partners Dinner.
A sedate affair, seeing as most of us had been up revelling the night before, and all anyone wanted to do was sleep. After propping ourselves up at work all day and having a group recovery session with pizza for lunch, that evening the SP division of the workplace met up on Kensington High Street for drinks and dinner in a small piano bar.
It was a sedate affair compared to the previous evening, although we gradually lived up in the atmophere of the strange little place. Even a certain
Amy, Karl and Mel
Celebrating the season at Julia's cocktail evening. person who had turned green and been unable to eat his pizza earlier in the day was in lively form. The men were compared photos of their children on their mobile phones (it is a company of techno geekery after all - they wouldn't be caught with a tattered photograph in the wallet!) and the rest of us chatted away and making inroads into whatever budget we had. It was a nice night, and we all stayed out far longer than we should have.
The seventh day of Christmas: Definitely no day of rest! For me, the big day itself began the night before, when I attended Midnight Mass at Westminster Cathedral. The enormous vaulted stone roof, impressive enough in daylight, was cavernous above the nave, stunningly lit with thousands of flickering candles. The sound of the Choir went beyond words, the Cardinal celebrated the Mass, and when we reached the reading of the Birth of Christ all the bells rang out, the lights blazed on and the organ rumbled - it was absolutely incredible.
I rang my family, who were in the middle of their Christmas Day, while in the enormous queues for taxis outside Victoria. Managing
Kate, Bex and me
Happy cocktail party-goers, at Julia's. to grab a cab with three Italian girls staying around the corner, I got safely home and ripped open a couple of presents - in my defense, three am counts as Christmas Day, and it had been Christmas in New Zealand for half a day already! I managed a few hours sleep before the excitement began afresh in the morning. Brian, the hostel owner and our landlord, has a tradition of cooking a Christmas lunch for all the transplants, so the gathering in the lounge on Christmas morning was hyped up on chocolates and anticipation.
We weren't allowed anywhere near the kitchens while things were roasted, assembled, chopped and boiled; so to avoid bouncing off the walls entirely, Bronwyn, Ange and I decamped to Burger King to put some food in our empty tummies. For me it was certainly a depature from previous Christmasses, but there was a tempting naughtiness in it, and I ate my cheeseburger with gusto. It's interesting to see who's out there on Christmas morning. I found myself wondering what had brought the other customers in the restaurant out...
Back at home, we had pre-dinner drinks and Secret Santa presents in the lounge at
number 57. Santa himself had handed the cooking over to his helpers, and distributed the gifts from his big sack. As our numbers were called we went forward one by one and sat on his knee. Some time later a very dishevilled Santa called bade us be good and returned to the kitchen, where he superintended the finishing touches. Removing his beard, he later called us all through to the lounge at 55 for a sit down dinner - the remarkable banquet table was groaning with crackers, noisemakers, turkey, brussels sprouts, potatoes, beans and of course gravy. Brian was certainly made to regret the noisemakers, as growing hilarity and a deafening uproar ensued.
The dinner was lip-smackingly good, and there was even desert of mince pies, pudding and custard to follow! Later on a group of full, happy people picked at the leftovers and watched Christmas movies to the accompaniment of rounds of festive shots, talking and laughing until Christmas 2006 drew to a close. It had been a marvelous month.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.068s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.019s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
