Tis the season for goodwill to all men. But tis also the season to be a bit bitchy about Christmas lights. If this article is too silly for your liking, out straighter round-up of Christmas lights can be found here.
Disclaimer: we love all London's festive lights really. This is just a bit of fun.
Bond Street Christmas lights
The festive crowns have been toppled on Bond Street. This year, the street's decided to bottle it — 'it' being Chanel No.5. The bottles themselves are an undeniable design classic, and the lights are not entirely unpretty (judging from the image above, if you happen to be 11 feet tall, you can look through them all at once, creating a, ahem, Chanel Tunnel effect). The 'snow' effect in the background is a deft touch too. Still, there's no getting around the fact this reeks of product placement. TL;DR: If you're short on funds this Christmas, avoid taking your perfume-loving other half here. Rating: ★★★☆☆
Belgravia Christmas lights
Glow-up angel wings you can selfie with to your heart's content are an enchanting (if not exactly original) touch, but Belgravia's other illuminations are a mixed Santa's sack. The chandeliers provide Downton-esque razzle-dazzle, but the stars above Motcomb Street are so thin on the ground in the air it looks like someone's been up there with a cherry-picker and half-inched the rest. TL;DR: It's beginning to look a lot little like Christmas. Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Covent Garden Christmas lights
Last year we bemoaned Covent Garden Market's decision to denude itself of its giant hanging mistletoe, and replace it with "a job lot of f**k-off massive chintzy bells and oversized red medicine balls" (our words). Got to be honest though, having been back in 2024, said bell/ball combo is beginning to grow on us. Like a clump of parasitic mistletoe attaching itself to a host tree via a haustorium, if you will. TL;DR: By 2026, this'll have a five-star rating. Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Shard Christmas lights
The Shard's 2023 digital snowman display has melted away, to be replaced by three lighting settings. a) gaudy 1980s Christmas tree b) A candy cane stripe so tasty-looking you want to lick it and c) a menacing blood-red, making it look like the Eye of Sauron/the tip of a recently-used pointy weapon. Quite the trio. TL;DR: "Ohhh!" Ahhh! Errrr??! "Rating: ★★★★☆
Savile Row Christmas lights
Fair play to newish kid on the block Savile Row for throwing its (bespoke) hat into the Christmas illuminations ring. With a none-too-subtle play on its tailoring heritage, its pairs of massive glowing shears snip through pealit flutters of fabric, for the second year running. Not the most memorable display, but still a welcome West End addition. TL;DR: A cut (literally) above. Rating: ★★★☆☆
Oxford Street Christmas lights
Important enough to have their own title, we were about to snidely suggest that A Sky Full of Stars is the sort of sickly name Coldplay would title one of their songs, until we realised it IS. Fortunately, this display of over 5,000 stars strung up along the much-haunted thoroughfare are far more enchanting than their namesake. There's a homemade, 'school nativity' vibe to these dangling celestial bodies — and we mean that in a good way. These are in no way bad — it's just that neighbouring Regent Street (see later on) is in a different league. TL;DR: Stars of wonder. Rating: ★★★☆☆
Carnaby Street Christmas lights
Historically, Carnaby Street is the black sheep/rebellious teen of London's illuminations — swerving stars and baubles for things like song lyrics and planets. In 2023, it was an incandescent, swirling vortex of lights — the Solar System as if revamped by RuPaul. This year, the lights have turned monotone, all giving off the same wan shade of gold. As for the shapes — were these stars and Christmas crackers designed by Minecraft? TL;DR: Colour me unimpressed. Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Strand/Villiers Street Christmas lights
In 2023, we awarded the Strand (or 'Northbank' as they insisted on calling it) Christmas lights ★☆☆☆☆ with the succinct review: "Ho ho no." Someone must've been reading, because in 2024 the woeful branded lights are vanquished, replaced with wand-waving/stardust-blowing fairies formed out of 96,000 LEDs, which are a punning tribute to fairy lights, which were — would you know it — first invented in 1822 by Joseph Swan, for a show at the nearby Savoy Theatre. We saw these lights being strung up in early November, and they were already a vast improvement before they were even turned on. Let's hope they weave their magic for years to come. TL;DR: Our wish came true. Rating: ★★★★☆
Soho Christmas lights
Children are the future (if indeed this planet HAS a future), so it's only fair they get a crack at designing the Christmas lights too. And, for the fourth year in a row, what a sterling job the kids of Soho Parish School have done. While Christmas lights can often be a serious business, here we get Christmas pineapples, crabs and bicycles. The only rule applied: if you stick a Santa hat on it, it's Christmassy dammit. TL;DR: The innocence of Christmas restored. Rating: ★★★★★
Churchill Arms Christmas lights
What beats a dazzling display of Christmas lights? Why, a dazzling display of Christmas lights you can drink a pint of beer inside, of course. Londoners differ on their favourite display of festive lights, until you mention Kensington's Churchill Arms and its annual OTT smothering of fairy lights/miniature trees, at which point they go "Oh yeah, that's the best!" Just as well this pub wasn't around during the Blitz, because Churchill would've personally thrown them in the slammer and chucked away the key. TL;DR: Never in the field of Christmas was so much spent on leccy bills for so many lights covering such a small space. Or something. Rating: ★★★★★
Regent Street Christmas lights
Regent Street had the first official Christmas lights in central London back in 1954 — and guess what — they were shaped like trumpet-parping angels. Though the curvy thoroughfare's dabbled with everything from chandeliers to hot air balloons since, it eventually realised that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Each year, 45 spirits soar overhead, spewing blankets of sparkles from their angelic backsides. They look like Antony Gormley figures that've been mowed down by a double-decker, died, and are now tripping the light fantastic. Truly the pigs in blankets of the Christmas illumination world i.e. sublime. TL;DR: Hark! The Herald Angels Win. Rating: ★★★★★★
