Pictures From Piccadilly

 

A passer-by carries a giant candy cane Balloon. Buy similar from Amazon and party shops and kiosks.

Love bird lights.

Festive trees with lights, outside Park Lane.

Hotels near Green Park station include the art deco Sheraton Grand.

Useful Websites

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PartyDeco-Foil-Balloon-Christmas-Candy

https://tfl.gov.uk/tube/stop/940GZZLUGPK/green-park-underground-station

Watch The Animated Model of cars, carousels, turning trees, trains and trucks at Marina Bay Sands, Plus People Watching

Problem
Where is it?

Answer
Outside the gift shop of Tower Three in Marina Bay Sands. An animated display in a glass cube showing many moving objects, carousels, cars, trains and trucks. An amusement for children and adults alike.

Another entertainment is people watching. Many pairs. 

1 Two Japanese girls with long black hair and shopping bags. 

2 Two women who might be twins wearing horizontal black and white stripes. 

3 Two Singaporeans, a boy and a girl, with matching pink hair.

Couple with pink hair and pink fringes, at Marina Bay Sands. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer.

Christmas Shopping in London and Worldwide and Make Decorations From Leftover crackers

Problem what to buy - don't leave it to the last minute. 

Last year I tried to buy too early and take British Christmas cake with me overseas. But the date it expired was just before Christmas. This year I checked Christmas cakes and fruit cakes with white icing and found some small oblong cakes in Waitrose with expiry dates after Christmas.

This iced fruit bar from Waitrose, 2017 November, will keep going until January, so it will see you through to Christmas or New Year's Eve. With a plain white iced top, you could decorate one for Christmas Eve and one for New Year's Eve. I don't believe in drinking on an empty stomach.

24 hour Asda branch on the Edgware Road, London, England.

Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Christmas Tree and band playing in Prague, Czech Republic, 2016-7. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

UK Christmas crackers, sold in supermarkets. Saved from Christmas dinner at a restaurant in 2016. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Heston from Waitrose, Persian spiced Christmas pudding, 2017. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Waitrose has both the Heston Christmas cakes with fruit centres. One is a Mandarin orange, the other Persian Spiced, available in several sizes, from one person to family sized.

Waitrose supermarket decorations 2016. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

A one person traditional Christmas pudding with a white sauce. The English tradition is yellow custard. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Americans sell plum pudding in supermarkets all year. 

Recycling old colourful or silver and gold crackers into a wreath for the front door, 2016. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Last minute, last year - we're the only house without a wreath to welcome on Christmas Day. I rushed out with some used crackers. 

With a bit of effort you can use old christmas crackers on an old coat hanger, the sort you get with dry cleaning, turned into a hoop, perhaps shaped around an old bucket. Alternatively attach crackers, stuck around an upturned silver colour biscuit tin or biscuit tin lid.

Or leave the organising to somebody else:

Ice hotel for a winter marriage ceremony or blessing. Photo from Wikipedia.

This year the choice of Christmas jumpers is wider than ever before. I find Christmas themed clothes can be a nuisance, because you can only were them at Christmas, then have to store them and find them next year, or give them away to charity.

Supermarket and store and Christmas websites:
Advent calendars, Christmas jumpers and more are available online:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/b?node=11180296031 (advent calendars)
http://www.marksandspencer.com
http://www.sainsburys.co.uk
http://tesco.com
http://waitrose.com
https://direct.asda.com/george/clothing
https://direct.asda.com/george/christmas-shop/christmas-jumpers
https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/Christmas.htm

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please save and share links to your favourite posts.

Carrying Gift Wrapping Paper, Card, and Making Christmas Trees - Let's Craft with ModernMom - 12 Days of...

A video of making wrapping paper into conical tree table decorations is a great idea if you travel to a flat, second home or all suite hotel and want a table decoration for Christmas or New Year or a birthday. it reminds me of how I often travel with wrapping paper for gifts, because a wrapped gift has to be opened for customs and excise or security.

I travel with a roll of wrapping paper, a teeny set of paints or couple of felt tip coloured pens in different colours, and a roll of sticky tape. I have leftover wrapping paper to re-cover box files or to do craft work.

Transporting Paper Without Creases
A roll of wrapping paper can be transported flat in the base or lid pocket of a suitcase. Alternatively, use the outside pocket of a carry on bag.

Roll paper you need to keep flat (such as a certificate or birthday card or poster) either inside or outside a cardboard tube. Where do you find a tube? Use a tube from kitchen roll paper. Or make a long tube of two or three toilet paper or kitchen roll inner tubed taped together to make a longer one.

Alternatively, keep a tube from a poster which has been posted to you, or any kitchen roll. Roll up, the paper to be protected inside the stiff cardboard.

A kitchen original tube can later be cut to make a cone.

The more remote your destination, the more impressed others will be by such items as wrapping paper. For example, on a trek up Everest, one of the members had a birthday. The Sherpas (one of many mountain tribes of Nepal) cooked a cake. Friends among the trekkers had brought the cake frill and cards. On Mera Peak, in the Himalayas in Nepal in the year 2000.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.