Due to prohibitively priced flights and prohibitively short school holidays, we have settled into the routine of spending Christmas in London. At first it was very difficult to be away from our family during such a family-focused time, but now that we have our own family and we're used to it, being in London for Christmas is something we look forward to.
Of course, we never plan to actually stay in London. We always start the holiday planning off by talking about where we want to go. I usually long for someplace warm and sunny. Jim and the girls always want to go someplace snowy and Christmas-like. Austria usually is discussed. As is Amsterdam (more for the Christmas-like than the snow). I secretly research 'beachy' European destinations, which are all far too cold at this time of year. Then we talk some more about where we want to go, weighing the options, looking half-heartedly on Airbnb for affordable places to stay. And at some point we just stop talking about it and resign ourselves to staying here, never regretting the decision.
This year, like always, we decided to haul ourselves off the couch, stop eating cheese for a little while, and go into Central London to see the Christmas Lights. We started by eating some more:
Then, after eating far too much, we headed down to the epicentre of last minute Christmas shopping: Oxford Street.
And to the epicentre of the epicentre: Selfridges.
While we visit Selfridge's every year, thanks to its fantastic (and sometimes creepy) window displays and general festive air, I would like to point out that we have never actually purchased anything there (with the exception of food...do you see a theme?). We are way too cheap to shop at Selfridge's, but we love to go in and wander around and look at the designer clothes and shoes and ridiculously over the top toys. Plus they usually have people singing and disco balls hanging from the ceiling and it's kind of a walk down memory lane because we used to go to Selfridge's to see Santa when the girls were little. Unfortunately, Santa's grotto got turned into a Cinema, so now we can only dream of Santa in Selfridge's.
In we went, stopping first in the makeup department, where we dipped our eager fingers into every single brightly coloured or spangly makeup sample at the NARS table. The tired-looking, young makeup people working the counter were busy putting makeup on people who actually were going to buy something, so we took liberties without interference. (Thanks to the fact that Jim and I have outrageous American accents, we get away with being tourists very easily. We are invisible to the haughty salespeople, who look down their noses at us with disdain. It's great being classless, touristy Americans who let their children play with high end makeup!)
From the makeup section, we moved on to the toys, bypassing Men's Fashion ('too boring' and 'Oh please, as if you would wear any of that stuff' were a couple of comments as Jim gazed longingly in that direction). Unfortunately, Selfridge's had the EXACT GIANT UNICORN that M had written to Santa about. We were sweating in our boots because, although it was giant and cuddly, at £100 Santa wasn't planning to deliver.
Fortunately, it was just at this point that the girls in sequins and solid gold roller skates rolled by, distracting everyone from overpriced unicorns and other giant temptations.
After ogling the pretty girls on roller skates (and expressing envy at their sequin bodysuits), we moved on to ogling shoes. While the girls' enthusiasm for all things glittery and ridiculously expensive wasn't waning, Jim's was, so after each deciding which pair of £400 shoes we would like to have purchased, we all headed back out to the streets to finish looking at the lights.
Carnaby Street had ice block looking lights:
It was too early in Soho to see anything REALLY interesting (like young, muscly men in their underwear dancing in windows of clubs...always a highlight for me!), but they were projecting a nice message of peace and love and acceptance through their lights display:
The End!
