Christmas Events in Britain

The festive season brings a host of Christmas events and entertainments throughout Britain. Here is a guide to some of the strange and wonderful goings on in England, Scotland and Wales, this Christmas season.

During the festive period Christmas Trees and lights adorn towns and cities across Britain. In the theatres and stages of the land the Christmas Panto season and ballet are played out to entertain children of all ages.

A range of street entertainments from Christmas Carol singers and market stalls can be found, while Christmas shoppers in London can expect to be entertained by Christmas Gala Orchestras at St Martin-in-the-fields and Handel’s Messiah in St Paul’s Cathedral.

At the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum in Chichester, the spirit of Christmas past is played out with a ‘Sussex Christmas’ from 26th December to 1st January. The Tudor buildings of the museum will transport visitors to a Christmas of the Elizabethan era with traditional foods of the time such as sweetmeats, prune suckets and warm hypocras.

While many people in Britain will be tucking into their turkey or watching the Queen’s speech, some will spend their Christmas Day exerting themselves. In Hyde Park in London, people turnout in their swimming costumes to compete in the Peter Pan Swimming Cup, an annual Christmas Day swimming race in the freezing waters of the Serpentine. And in Orkney of the northern coast of Scotland, Christmas Day sees the annual competition called, ‘The Ba, where thousands throughout the islands gather to play an old fashioned game of football through the streets of Kirkwall.

In Scotland the New Year is celebrated as Hogmanay, with huge street parties in Edinburgh & Glasgow, a fabulous Flambeaux Procession in the Perthshire town of Comrie, the swinging of Fireballs in Stonehaven and the Biggar Bonfire in the town of Biggar in the Scottish Borders.

Traditionally in Wales, the New Year is welcomed with the ‘Mari Llwyd’ where people carry the skull of a horse on a pole from house to house, reciting rhymes and songs. This tradition is upheld in the Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells with the New Year Walk In, a torch lit procession through the town culminating with a celebration in the town square on the stroke of midnight.

For further information on Christmas vacations to Britain, please contact one of our guides.