Almost every guide to Christmas things to do in London is a list of lights and markets. The useful version starts somewhere else, with the fact that decides your whole trip and that nobody puts near the top.
On Christmas Day, London stops. There is no Tube, no bus, no DLR, no Overground and no Tramlink. Not a reduced service: none at all. Taxis and private hire run, Santander Cycles run, and that is essentially the list.
Which means the question is not what is on. It is which day you are here, because London at Christmas is three completely different cities depending on the date.
The three Decembers
The first three weeks are the ones people mean. Everything is open, everything is lit, and everything is busy. This is when to come.
Christmas Eve to Boxing Day is a closed city. The museums shut from 24 to 26 December. The markets shut. Winter Wonderland closes for Christmas Day. Most restaurants are gone, and on the 25th so is the transport.
The week between Boxing Day and New Year reopens, half-empty and unusually pleasant. The sales are on, the tourists have thinned, and tables that were impossible in early December are available.
What is actually open on Christmas Day
Short list, and better than it sounds.
The outdoors, all of it. The parks do not close. The river walks do not close. If you are here on the 25th, a long walk is not a consolation prize, it is the best thing available and the city is emptier than you will ever see it again.
The swimming, remarkably. Parliament Hill Lido and the Highgate and Kenwood ponds on Hampstead Heath open every day of the year, Christmas Day included. It is about four degrees. People do it anyway and there is a queue.
Hotel dining rooms. The grand hotels serve Christmas lunch and they are close to the only kitchens working. They are booked months out, not weeks. Our hotels guide covers which rooms are worth it.
Getting anywhere is on foot or by cab. Plan a day you can walk, or book a car well ahead and expect to pay for the date.
What to book, and when
This is the part that actually decides whether your December works, and it is a calendar rather than a list.
The ice rink at Somerset House
The best known of the London rinks, in a courtyard built to be looked at, and the one that sells out first. It is also the most expensive ice in the city by a wide margin, which the next section deals with.
Skate at Somerset House
- Address
- Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 1LA
- Nearest
- Temple or Charing Cross
- Hours
- 11 November 2026 to 10 January 2027
- Booking
- Season tickets went on sale at 10am on 25 September 2026 and are now live, so the best evening slots are already going
- Price
- Adults 13 to 28.50 pounds, children from 11 pounds, plus a 1.50 transaction fee per ticket
- Standing
- In the eighteenth century courtyard of Somerset House
How to get in
The release date is the whole thing: tickets for the season went on sale at ten in the morning on 25 September, and the good evening slots went the same day. The price moves through the run, from 13 pounds at the quiet end to 28.50 at the busiest, so the cheapest session is less than half the dearest. Temple is the closest station and almost nobody uses it.
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
- Address
- Hyde Park, W2 2UH
- Nearest
- Hyde Park Corner or Marble Arch
- Hours
- 19 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, daily except Christmas Day
- Booking
- Every visitor pre-books a date and an hour of arrival. You can buy at the gate if a slot is left, at the higher on the day price
- Price
- Timed entry booked ahead: 1 pound off peak, 5.50 standard and 8.25 peak, and free if you spend 25 pounds in one online booking
- Standing
- A funfair rather than a Christmas market, whatever it is called
How to get in
Entry is timed and booked, and everything inside is paid for on top, which is the thing to understand before you take a family. It is a funfair with a market attached rather than the other way round. Closed on Christmas Day. Go on a weekday: the weekend queues at the gate are the worst of any attraction in London in December.
Christmas lunch, and the grand hotels
Book by October. Christmas Day lunch in a London hotel is a months-ahead reservation, not a weeks-ahead one, and the kitchens that do it are a short list because almost everywhere else is shut.
Two rinks in last year’s guides are not happening
Check this before you plan an evening around either of them, because the lists have not caught up.
The Natural History Museum ice rink has closed permanently. The museum’s own page says so plainly: after sixteen years, the five acre gardens the rink sat on have been turned into a hub for urban wildlife. It is not returning. For most of two decades this was the rink people pictured when they pictured skating in London, and it will still be sitting in a great many guides this December.
Ice Rink Canary Wharf is not operating this winter. Their own words are that they have taken the decision to take a break for the 2026 winter season and the rink will not be operating this year. They hope to return in future. Both rechecked on 28 September 2026.
That is two of the four names most people can list, gone in the same year, which changes the arithmetic of the ones that remain.
What the ice actually costs
| Rink | Adult price | Season |
|---|---|---|
| Skate at Somerset House | £13 to £28.50, plus £1.50 per ticket | 11 Nov 2026 to 10 Jan 2027 |
| Alexandra Palace | £11.75 to £12.75 | Winter season |
| QUEENS, Queensway | Published per session on booking | All year |
| Natural History Museum | Closed permanently | Gone |
| Canary Wharf | Not operating | Not this year |
Read the top two lines together. A peak session at Somerset House is £28.50 plus the booking fee, so thirty pounds a head. The same hour on the ice at Alexandra Palace is £12.75 at its most expensive, and Ally Pally was voted the best rink in the country in 2023.
You are paying roughly two and a half times as much for the courtyard. That is a legitimate thing to buy, because the eighteenth century courtyard lit up in December is genuinely one of the sights of the London winter and the rink at Alexandra Palace is a sports hall. But it should be a decision rather than a default.
Alexandra Palace, Muswell Hill
Alexandra Palace Ice Rink
- Address
- Alexandra Palace Way, N22 7AY
- Nearest
- Alexandra Palace or Wood Green
- Price
- Standard 11.75 to 12.75 pounds. Under 12s 10.50 to 11.50. Under 5s 7.75 to 8.75. Over 65s 10.50 to 11.50. Spectators 2.50 to 3.00. Skate aids 7.50
- Standing
- Voted the UK’s number one ice rink in 2023
How to get in
Less than half the price of Somerset House at peak and a proper rink rather than a seasonal pop up. Two things to know before you book: spectators are charged, at 2.50 to 3.00 a head, and an essential companion ticket is charged at the full standard rate of 11.75 to 12.75 rather than being free, which is worth budgeting for.
QUEENS, Queensway
QUEENS Skate Dine Bowl
- Address
- Queensway, W2
- Nearest
- Bayswater or Queensway
- Hours
- Open all year round
- Standing
- London’s oldest ice rink, its only indoor one, and the only one open year round
How to get in
The answer to the whole seasonal scramble: it is indoors, it is open every month of the year, and it has been skating for about 130 years. Seventeen lanes of bowling, interactive darts, an arcade and the only on ice curling lanes in London are attached to it, which makes it the one rink here that works as a whole evening rather than an hour.
The useful conclusion, now that two of the famous rinks have gone: if the point is the setting, pay for Somerset House and book early. If the point is skating, Alexandra Palace is half the price. If the point is that somebody wants to skate and it happens to be March, QUEENS is open and nothing else is.
The best Christmas lights in London, which cost nothing
This is what most people actually mean when they say they want London at Christmas. The London Christmas lights are free, need no ticket, and are the best thing in the city in December that nobody has to book.
Oxford Street, Regent Street, Bond Street, Carnaby and Covent Garden are the five worth walking, and they sit close enough together to do in one evening on foot. Lead with Regent Street: it is the largest, the street is wide enough to see it properly, and it runs down to Piccadilly.
The switch-on dates are announced through the autumn rather than fixed. The 2026 dates announced so far, and the ones still to come, are on our Christmas lights page. They usually land in the first half of November and run to early January, but each street announces its own and they move year to year.
Go on a weekday after the shops shut. The lights are on, the pavements are not full of shopping bags, and that is the difference between a walk and a queue. Avoid the switch-on events themselves, which draw a crowd that makes the street impossible.
The markets, and which ones are real
Four different things in London are called a Christmas market and only some of them are one. Our Christmas markets guide sorts the chalet markets from the funfairs from the ordinary street markets wearing lights, and covers what each actually costs.
The short version: Winter Wonderland is a funfair, the Southbank Centre Winter Market is a row of chalets along the river and is free to walk, and Borough and Columbia Road are ordinary markets that happen to be excellent in December.
Boxing Day and the quiet week
This is the underrated half of a London Christmas. From the 27th the city reopens into something much better than it was three weeks earlier: the museums are back, the sales are on, the restaurant diaries have space, and a good proportion of London has gone to stay with relatives.
If you have a choice of dates and you are here for the city rather than for the 25th itself, come between Boxing Day and New Year.
And for the end of it, New Year’s Eve in London covers what is confirmed, what a riverside ticket actually buys you, and why getting home is the hardest transport problem of the year.
Practical notes
Check the date, not the month. The 24th to the 26th is a different city from the rest of December, and the 25th is a different city again.
Book the dated things in September and October. Somerset House released its tickets on 25 September, so book what is left now. Hotel Christmas lunch goes months ahead, and Winter Wonderland needs a timed slot for every visitor. Everything else can wait.
The free half is the better half. The lights, the shop windows, the parks and the river cost nothing and are what people remember. The ticketed attractions are the part that needs planning, not the part that makes the trip.
Everything dated here was taken from each venue’s own published information, and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Christmas dates, prices and switch-on times change every year and several are still unannounced at the time of writing. Confirm before you travel.
The Christmas pages
Where to go next
Ice skating in London has the rink dates, and one of the best known rinks has closed for good.
Christmas at Kew has adult only evenings on 3 and 9 December, and its page has the last entry by gate.
The one number nobody will give you is Christmas Day lunch. Six of the rooms that rank first for it advertise the meal and none publishes a price, including Hawksmoor, which prints its ordinary set lunch to the penny all year.
Winter Wonderland is the six week fixture the season is built around, and the entry fee is the one part you should never pay: one pound off peak Monday to Thursday in November, free with a 25 pound spend, free with ride credit, free with any package.
London’s Christmas markets sorts the four different things that go by that name. The parks guide covers the walks and the year round swimming, and the hotels cover where Christmas lunch is actually served.
For the rest of a winter visit, what to do when it rains and free things to do in London are the two that carry a cold week.
Bonfire Night is the season’s opening act and it catches people out: 5 November 2026 is a Thursday, so London’s two biggest displays, Battersea Park and Alexandra Palace, have both moved to the weekend of the 7th and 8th.
Questions we get asked
Is the Natural History Museum ice rink still open?
No. The museum states on its own page that the ice rink has closed permanently. After sixteen years the five acre gardens it sat on have been turned into a hub for urban wildlife, and it is not returning. Ice Rink Canary Wharf is also not operating for the 2026 winter season, by its own announcement. Both were rechecked on 28 September 2026, and both still appear in guides republished from last year.
What is there to do in London at Christmas?
Walk the lights on Regent Street, Carnaby and Covent Garden, which are free and need no ticket, skate at Somerset House, which runs 11 November to 10 January and sells out, and see the chalet markets along the South Bank. The part most guides bury is the calendar: the 24th to the 26th is a closed city and the week after Boxing Day is the best and emptiest of the whole month.
Is London worth visiting at Christmas?
Yes, but the date matters more than in any other month. The first three weeks of December are the full version and are very busy. Christmas Eve to Boxing Day is largely shut, with no public transport at all on the 25th. The week between Boxing Day and New Year is the quiet one, with the museums open, the sales on and restaurant tables that were impossible a fortnight earlier.
Does the Tube run on Christmas Day?
No. There is no Tube, no bus, no DLR, no Overground and no Tramlink on 25 December. Not a reduced service: none at all. Taxis and private hire run, and so do Santander Cycles. Plan a day you can walk or book a car well in advance, because demand and prices on that date are what you would expect.
What is open in London on Christmas Day?
The outdoors, and the hotel dining rooms. The parks and river walks do not close and the city is emptier than you will see it at any other time. Parliament Hill Lido and the Highgate and Kenwood ponds on Hampstead Heath open every day of the year including Christmas Day. The museums are closed from 24 to 26 December and the markets are shut.
What is the most Christmassy place in London?
Regent Street for the lights, because it is the largest display and the street is wide enough to actually see it, and the Somerset House courtyard for the rink, because the building was built to be looked at and the ice sits in the middle of it. Covent Garden runs both a display and a market in one place, which makes it the efficient answer if you only have an evening.
When do the Christmas lights go on in London?
Usually the first half of November, running to early January, but each street announces its own date and they move year to year. The switch-on events themselves are worth avoiding: they draw a crowd that makes the street hard to walk. A weekday evening after the shops close is the version worth having.
When should you book Christmas things in London?
Somerset House released its ice rink tickets at 10am on 25 September and the good evening slots went the same day, so book what is left now. Christmas Day lunch at a hotel is a months ahead booking rather than a weeks ahead one, because almost every other kitchen in London is closed. The lights, the windows and the parks need no booking at all.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 87 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
