If you’ve not already done so, you can subscribe to these daily listings and have them delivered to your inbox at 7am every morning. Alternatively, subscribe to Londonist Daily to hear about events further in the future. And help spread the word to your friends who haven’t discovered us yet!
Listings
BLOOD: Today’s opportunity to donate blood is at City Temple by Holborn Viaduct. Free, see site for terms and conditions
CHRISTMAS MARKETS: Find a festive market near you and pick up some presents while scoffing a mince pie
SKATING: Don't forget that Christmas ice skating is a go! Find a list of the rinks you can visit here, and get your skates on hurry along to the aforementioned.
CHRISTMAS SHOWS: Check out cracking festive theatre shows on in London this season, with options for all sorts of folk.
FINNISH CHRISTMAS: The second annual Finnish Christmas Pop-Up Shop takes place in Holborn, selling delicacies including salted liquorice and herring. Or, for the less adventurous, there's free mulled wine and gingerbread. Free, just turn up, 10am-8pm
CHRISTMAS MOVIES: 20th Century Theatre in Notting Hill continues its run of seasonal films with Home Alone 2: Lost in New York; A Christmas Story and A Nightmare Before Christmas. Tickets £16 (adults) or £10 (under 1os), prebook, noon onward
WEST END CELEBRATION: The cast of MAMMA MIA! provide a medley of songs from some of the West End's greatest hits while you luxuriate with champagne, mince pies and red velvet cupcakes at the Waldorf Hilton. No, it's real, I swear! £45, prebook, 3pm
CHRISTMAS TREES: Cast off the yoke of pine needle oppression as you learn to create cardboard trees, decorations and tree toppers at The Book Club in Shoreditch. No more daily hoovering of pine needles again. £8, prebook, 7pm
CHAUCER FAST-FORWARD: Spoken word artist Charlie Dark and performance poet Patience Agbabi run performance workshops with inner-city teens, updating and re-imagining the Canterbury Tales. Today the British Library hosts a televised broadcast of the updated tales. Free, RSVP, 6pm - 8pm
STORMS IN A TEACUP: Coffee House Poetry has a stormy weather theme on Old Brompton Road. £8 / £7, just turn up, 8pm
Good Causes of the Day
Tonight SwapAholicsUK hosts a fashion swap in collaboration with Crisis Skylight Cafe in Aldgate East. Bring your own clothes and swap with those of others, all in aid of Crisis Skylight - an award winning education, training and employment centre for homeless people. Free (donations encouraged), just turn up, 6-9pm
London Connection Puzzle
Congratulations to Robert Buss, who was first to identify that CYPRUS, INDIA, HOLLAND and CANADA are all countries name-checked in stations on the tube map (and, yes, we're aware that Holland is a region, not a country, but the term is frequently used in this way). A new puzzle will start tomorrow.
From the Archive
Ever stuck for something to say? Find yourself in awkward company? Need to find something to put into the Archive section in Londonist's Things To Do Today article, and nothing's leaping out at you? You can't go wrong with the good old British weather - here's a gallery of London weather from 2011. Speaking of which...
London Weather by Inclement Attlee
Imagine a tiny model of London inside a snow globe. Shake up that snow globe, and you pretty much get today's weather, but only if you ignore the snow bits. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that it'll be wet and windy in London, and everything will look just a little bit tacky. Oh, I don't know. I'm running out of creative ways to say 'look, it's early winter, the weather's dull and unremarkable, deal with it'.
