Christmas in the West End

The kids and I had our annual trip up to town to look at the Christmas windows and pop in a few shops and browse around. Last year, we missed the windows as we weren't able to go up to town until the 27th, and the main shops (Harrods, Selfridges) had their windows papered over with sale signs by then - very disappointing! So this year, we made sure to get up BEFORE Christmas.

Harrods' windows were quite good this year - some years they have been a little disappointing, I thought - this year, there was a Peter Pan theme, with lots of little faeries, feathers and other miscellaneous bling.



We loved some of the little details like these gorgeous birds (Cloisonne, perhaps?) - there were some hedgehogs in the same style on the ground of the displays - quite small, the birds were maybe 4 or 5 inches beak to tail and the hedgehogs were even smaller. Lovely.



I liked these two pirates, both of whom were wearing slippers in the display - and I also liked the reflection of the passersby in the window behind (it's very hard to photograph windows, even with the flash off...)



This is the mermaid from Peter Pan - her tail was superb, but I didn't really manage to get a good photo of it, due to angels and window glass and stuff.



We then walked along Knightsbridge to Harvey Nicks, where the windows were just kind of bizarre, but in a fun, holiday-type way.

After that, we popped up to Hyde Park Corner, debated poking through the Winter Wonderland, decided against it and instead grabbed a bus to Oxford Street to check out the windows at Selfridges.



This, I think, was my favourite, though there were a lot of good ones with funky monster toys and stuff, too.




And we liked the Barbie Christmas tree.



This photo was taken inside Selfridges - standing at the bottom of the escalators, looking up. The disco balls raised and lowered (some of them, anyway). I always like to hit the Christmas shop at Selfridges as everything is at least 50 per cent off by this time of year. We always pick up a few ornaments. This year, we got a snowglobe with a polar bear inside for less than half price.

Finally, a long walk down Oxford Street to Oxford Circus, where we headed down Regent Street to have a poke around Hamley's.



The lights in Regent Street were great, I though - these big nets of lights, which looked abstract from a distance, but from underneath, were obviously stars. Fun!