Christmas in England
Like Marmite, you either love it or you hate it. Englanders love it, actually
Rudolph and his reindeer mate ramming a jar of Marmite on Oxford Street in 2012. More than 200,000 low energy bulbs were used to create the displays across a half mile of the shopping district.
I celebrated my first Christmas in England in December 2012. I vaguely remember staying in Camden Town — in a friend’s condo just off the High Street — and taking one of the double-deckers down Oxford Street, where, if you climbed to the second level, you had the best view of the lights. That year, Marmite — the yeasty replacement for butter or other bread spread that you love or you hate — sponsored the animated lights, as they flashed two reindeer ramming into a jar of Marmite, elves falling into a pot of the stuff or Santa eating Marmite-coated toast and spitting it out. I loved those lights. I hate Marmite.
A lit up Santa throws out his Marmite toast on Oxford Street in 2012.
And like Marmite, you either love Christmas or you hate Christmas in England. I love Christmas, or rather used to love it. I remember my mother pulling out all the decorations and my father usually electrocuting himself whilst he hung lights outside our second home in Florence Avenue — the one we had before my parents divorced in 1987. I played helper to both, putting bulbs on hooks for mom and holding strings of lights as Dad laid them on strategically placed nails. I even got a little jolt once or twice when plugging them in. By age nine, I no longer believed in Santa Claus, but I could count on my parents to provide a mostly happy Christmas.
Known as ‘The Spirits of Christmas’, Regent Street’s Christmas lights display is one of the largest in the country. The lights were inspired by Regent Street's very first Christmas lights scheme in 1954, which featured angels positioned as if playing trumpets.
After 1988, however, for me the magic of Christmas disappeared. It became less about surprise and cheer and more about whose house or which set of grandparents we would visit. Too many times to be counted, were we shuffled off to the freezing cornfields of Iowa to visit my elder grandparents in their equally cold farmhouse. Same for the Southern City of Louisville, Kentucky, which had a touch more civilisation if not civility between warring factions of my mother’s family. Bright moments were few and far between.
The now Qatari owned-and-operated Harrod’s Department store kicked off the holiday season with a light display designed by none other than French fashion label Christian Dior.
By the late 90s, those days were largely over as I made the routine pilgrimage to Chicago’s O’Hare International followed by the decidedly unadventurous domestic flight home. Those were happy and relieved journeys, as I presided over the Christmas displays on the ground and landed two hours later to a tree already trimmed and lights hung on respective parent’s houses. My ‘stepfather’ even owned a construction company that specialised in Christmas decorations during the off-season, and made a mint having his ‘guys’ hang up lit Santas and blow-up Frostys and brightly trimmed baby Jesuses. ‘The key to good lighting is to string them all as straight as possible,’ my mother’s second husband used to tell me. That, and I suppose not to overdo it? But in Tulsa, if you weren’t outdoing your neighbor in car- or house-size, you outdid them in the number of Christmas lights.
´Carnaby Celebrates’ is the theme of this year’s lights along the famous shopping district in London. The 2022 display is a ‘medley’ of the last 25 years.
If there is one theme running through all of my Christmases, however, it is lights. From age four to age 40 and beyond, invariably at some point, a parent would suggest a ‘drive’ to see all the various ways our city celebrated. In Tulsa, they even offered helicopter tours for a few hundred dollars. When I spent my first few Christmases in England, other than the Marmite on Oxford, I never saw that level of ostentation when it came to holiday displays, even though with their paper crowns and crackers and Paddington Bear movies, it’s clear the English love Christmas.
Thé words ‘Ho, Ho, SoHo,’ light up the path to the famous district in London. This year’s display raises money for refugees around the world.
After I moved to London in 2021, I finally saw the Christmas light freak flag fly. Never to be outdone by the Americans, modest houses and even Council flats in my Islington neighborhood now feature blow-up nutcrackers or those waxy plastic 1970s candles, Santas or Nativity scenes. I doubt the English spend enough to go bankrupt — like the guy in Oklahoma whose electric bill in November and December was easily over $1,000 per month (in the 1980s) — but in 2022, some eyes definitely got bigger than pocketbooks.
Even Sherlock Holmes hangs Christmas decorations for the season. Don’t expect lights at 221 Baker Street, however. Too outlandish.
My inherent belief is that one does not need a holiday to treat someone kindly or give a gift or even to put up some twinkle lights. But in another year beset by war, a deepening divide between rich and poor, insane governments, and more austerity, I felt spirited enough to buy a small tree, some blown-glass dodads and a Christmas sweater for the cat — unnecessary expenses. I also (intentionally) walked around Oxford Street and marvelled at the displays — even if those displays only ran from 4 to 11pm and are always too crowded to get a good photograph. Maybe next year, I’ll feel so jolly, I’ll shell out for a bus tour.
Two Council flats in Islington trying to outdo each other with blow-up Christmas figures. Not pictured: a third competing house with Santa, Frosty and elf.
A man sells Christmas trees and decorations New-York-style at a lot in Islington.
Santa Claus hangs on for dear life at a house in Islington.
An Islington institution: The Screen on the Green. No matter thé season, it’s lights are always red and green.
Happy Christmas and New Year from Marrakech, Morocco, friends, family and fans! See you in 2023!
Bromley, the cat, in her Arsenal Christmas sweater.