Planning Christmas in London? We spent four days visiting the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, while also fitting in F&M, Liberty, Harrods, Winter Wonderland, the Christmas lights, the Peter Pan Cup and a Christmas Day service. This guide follows our actual four-day itinerary, with practical notes on transport, driving, food and where we stayed.
4-Day London Christmas Itinerary
We drove down from Liverpool and stayed in London from 23 to 26 December 2025. On 23 and 24 December, we left the car at the hotel and used public transport. We only drove in London on 25 and 26 December.
If you are staying in London on 25 December, do not plan it like a normal sightseeing day. Many attractions and shops are closed and public transport stops running, so we used Christmas Day for the Peter Pan Cup and a Christmas service instead. We then fitted the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Winter Wonderland and the Christmas lights around the other three days.
|
Date |
Morning |
Afternoon |
Night |
|---|---|---|---|
|
23 Dec |
Horizon 22, quick lunch at Pret |
Tower of London |
Tower Bridge, small Christmas market, F&M, Liberty, Christmas lights, Kanada-Ya |
|
24 Dec |
Hotel breakfast, St Paul’s Cathedral |
Lunch at Cicchetti in Covent Garden, Harrods |
Winter Wonderland |
|
25 Dec |
Hotel breakfast, Peter Pan Cup, Christmas service at Westminster Abbey |
Starbucks lunch, drive across Tower Bridge to Brick Lane |
Back to the hotel, McDonald’s |
|
26 Dec |
Hotel breakfast, M&M’s and LEGO stores |
Westminster Abbey at 12 noon |
Drive home |
23 December: Tower of London & Christmas Lights
Horizon 22: Is It Worth the Queue?
Our first stop was Horizon 22, one of London’s free viewing platforms.
We waited around 45 minutes. The view is good and it is free, but I would not give it too much time on a packed four-day trip, especially as we were already planning to climb the dome at St Paul’s Cathedral the following day for a different view of London.
Quick Lunch at Pret
We grabbed something quick at Pret before heading to the Tower of London.
Pret soup works well on a busy winter sightseeing day: quick, hot, tasty and relatively budget-friendly — forgive my British taste buds. If I have a major attraction planned for the afternoon, I would rather do this than spend more than an hour looking for lunch.
Tower of London: Allow at Least Three Hours
The Tower of London was the main stop of the day.
We spent more than three hours inside. If you want to see the Crown Jewels, the White Tower and the wider complex properly, do not give yourself just an hour for a quick look. It is very easy to spend half a day here.
I deliberately put the Tower of London on the afternoon of 23 December. Getting one of our three main attractions done before Christmas Eve made the next couple of days much easier to organise.
- Tower of London Guide | Crown Jewels, Executions & Route
- Check Tower of London tickets
- Tower of London opening times
Tower Bridge at Night
By the time we left the Tower of London, it was already dark, which worked perfectly for seeing Tower Bridge and the riverside at night.
We did not go inside Tower Bridge this time. There was a small Christmas market underneath the bridge, mostly food and drink stalls, where we picked up hot drinks and mulled wine.
I would not make a special trip for this market, but it is a nice stop after several hours at the Tower of London.
F&M, Liberty & Christmas Lights
After Tower Bridge, we took the Jubilee line from London Bridge to Green Park, walked to Fortnum & Mason and then continued on foot towards Liberty.
It is an easy one-way route with very little backtracking. From F&M, you can walk through Burlington Arcade and the Bond Street area for the Chanel, Tiffany and other designer displays, continue towards Regent Street for the famous angel lights, then finish at Liberty.
The standout Christmas feature at F&M is its advent-calendar façade. We took our photos outside, went in for a look around and had a Scotch egg. It is not some essential London food experience, but little details like this are often what I remember most from a trip.
We finished the night with ramen at Kanada-Ya near Liberty.
If department stores are not your thing, you could swap this part of the evening for one of the larger central London Christmas markets:
- Leicester Square Christmas Market：Leicester Square, London WC2H
- Trafalgar Square Christmas Market：Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DS
We had already been to plenty of London Christmas markets in previous years, so this time we preferred to spend the evening on the department stores and lights.
24 December: St Paul’s & Winter Wonderland
St Paul’s Cathedral
After breakfast at the hotel, we went straight to St Paul’s Cathedral.
We visited the cathedral and climbed all the way up the dome, so this is not somewhere I would rush. It is also one reason Horizon 22 is easy to skip if your itinerary is tight: doing both means spending quite a lot of time over two days looking at the London skyline.
- St Paul’s Cathedral Review｜Is the 528-Step Dome Climb Worth It?
- Check St Paul’s Cathedral tickets
- Official visitor information
- Services and events at St Paul’s
Covent Garden & Harrods
After St Paul’s, we had lunch at Cicchetti in Covent Garden before heading to Harrods.
Harrods fits well into the afternoon of 24 December because Winter Wonderland is in Hyde Park, so the two work naturally together.
Together with F&M and Liberty the previous evening, we ended up visiting three famous London department stores without making the whole trip feel like a department-store crawl.
Harrods can look like somewhere only the seriously rich shop, but the reality is less dramatic. The Food Halls, Christmas department and souvenir sections are all places where ordinary middle-class families buy festive food and gifts. The furniture and interiors upstairs are where the prices start getting genuinely ridiculous.
I used to work at Harrods, so I have a separate article looking at the store from a former employee’s perspective, including what £100 can realistically buy.
Winter Wonderland
We kept the whole evening free for Winter Wonderland.
We went on the ice slide, watched the circus and played one of the fairground games where you try to win a giant soft toy. The site is huge, and once you add food stalls and time spent wandering around, an evening disappears very quickly.
Our biggest mistake was underestimating the queue for the ice slide.
We had booked a time slot and still waited for around an hour. You get two goes each, and the actual slide lasts only a few seconds, although it is great fun. The problem was that we then had to rush to make our circus performance.
If you are booking two or more attractions on the same evening, leave plenty of time between them. Do not assume the printed time slot tells you how long the whole experience will take.
For 2026, Winter Wonderland runs from 19 November 2026 to 3 January 2027 and is closed on 25 December.
25 December: Christmas Day in London
Christmas Day felt completely different from the rest of the trip, and it ended up being one of my favourite days.
With most attractions and shops closed, there was no point trying to fill the day with normal sightseeing. We watched the Peter Pan Cup in the morning and then went to a Christmas service instead.
Peter Pan Cup
The Peter Pan Cup takes place in the Serpentine in Hyde Park on Christmas morning.
We arrived around half an hour before the start and the front was already packed. You would need to arrive earlier for a front-row spot, but I personally would not bother. We could still see and film it by zooming in on our phones, and the atmosphere mattered more than having the perfect view.
And it was freezing.
The race itself is short. We watched the whole thing and were back in the car warming up less than half an hour later. I was happy to stand in the cold for a uniquely Christmas event; I just was not dedicated enough to stand there for ages to get the front row.
The café beside the lake was open for hot drinks and light food, and there is parking nearby. When we arrived, only one or two spaces were left, so allow a bit of extra time if you are driving.
Christmas Day at Westminster Abbey
We attended the 10:00–11:30 Christmas Day service at Westminster Abbey.
Bookings opened roughly a month beforehand that year, and we registered as soon as places became available. We took the confirmation with us on the day.
Photography is not allowed during the service. You simply follow everyone else: stand, sing, sit down, then stand again. We were not familiar with every part of the service, but sitting inside Westminster Abbey on Christmas morning felt completely different from visiting it as a tourist.
You cannot wander around sightseeing during a service, so we did not treat this as a replacement for a normal visit. We bought admission for the following day so we could come back and explore the building and tombs properly.
We drove to Westminster and found a free roadside parking space about a ten-minute walk from the Abbey. Central London traffic was lighter than on a normal day, but always check the signs before leaving your car.
No Car? Choose an Afternoon Service
Because we had a car, we could leave the Peter Pan Cup and drive straight to Westminster for the 10am service.
Without a car, I would plan the day differently
There is no normal public transport service on 25 December, so after the Peter Pan Cup I would walk at a relaxed pace and choose an afternoon Christmas service instead. Both Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral hold services on Christmas Day.
There is not much conventional sightseeing to do on Christmas afternoon anyway, so this is a good use of the day without having to rush across London first thing in the morning.
In 2026, St Paul’s Christmas Day Festal Evensong is scheduled for 15:00–16:00 and is free to attend without a ticket. Westminster Abbey publishes its own Christmas programme separately.
Christmas Day Food & Brick Lane
After the service, we had lunch at a Starbucks near Westminster before driving across Tower Bridge towards Brick Lane.
I had always wanted to drive across Tower Bridge once. When I worked in London, voluntarily driving through central London would have felt like self-inflicted punishment. I assumed Christmas Day might finally be the one chance to do it with quieter roads.
Apparently everyone else had the same idea. Traffic was still backed up, and both sides of the bridge were packed with pedestrians. So much for the empty-city fantasy.
Since we had already crossed the bridge, we carried on to Brick Lane to try our luck. The area is known for its Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants, mosque and multicultural communities, so I wondered whether at least some businesses might stay open on Christmas Day.
They did not.
Most places were closed. On the plus side, Brick Lane itself was unusually quiet, which made it a good time to photograph the street art without crowds, so the detour was not completely wasted.
We eventually returned to the hotel and had McDonald’s for dinner.
I had no regrets about skipping a formal Christmas dinner. If Christmas dinner matters to you, book somewhere well in advance. If you only want something simple, it is still worth finding a few places that have confirmed they will be open.
26 December: Boxing Day & Westminster Abbey
Leicester Square & Boxing Day Shopping
After breakfast on 26 December, we drove to the Leicester Square area and had a look around the M&M’s and LEGO stores.
The surprising part was parking.
On a normal day, driving into this part of London is not something we would willingly do, but on Boxing Day morning we managed to park nearby and save ourselves quite a bit of walking.
Restaurants in Chinatown were beginning to reopen and the shops were running their Boxing Day sales, so central London already felt completely different from Christmas Day.
I mostly shop online, so I was not there specifically for the Boxing Day sales. If shopping is one of the main reasons you are in London, though, 26 December is worth leaving more time for.
Westminster Abbey at Noon
We had booked normal admission to Westminster Abbey for 12 noon.
The previous day we had sat inside for the Christmas service; this time we could take the audio guide and explore it properly. The two visits felt completely different.
If you want both the Christmas service and a proper visit to Westminster Abbey, I would separate them like this. Enjoy the service on 25 December, then come back on a normal visitor day rather than trying to combine the two.
- Westminster Abbey Guide | Coronation Chair, Poets’ Corner & Christmas Service
- Check Westminster Abbey tickets
- Westminster Abbey visitor information
We grabbed something simple at the café afterwards and then drove straight back to Liverpool.
London Transport at Christmas
Although we drove from Liverpool to London, we did not use the car at all for the first two days.
On 23 and 24 December, we left it at the hotel and used the Tube and buses. Public transport stops running on 25 December, so that was the day we drove. On 26 December, we also took the car because we were heading home after Westminster Abbey.
Congestion Charge & ULEZ
As a general rule, the Congestion Charge is suspended from Christmas Day through to the New Year’s Day bank holiday, including both dates. For the 2026 Christmas period, that means no Congestion Charge from 25 December 2026 to 1 January 2027. Check TfL before travelling in case the dates or rules change.
ULEZ works differently. It normally operates 24 hours a day throughout the year, except on Christmas Day, so charges apply again from 26 December if your vehicle does not meet the emissions standard.
Where We Stayed: Mitre House Hotel
We stayed at Mitre House Hotel in Paddington. Our booking included breakfast for two and free parking throughout the stay.
For us, the biggest advantage was being able to leave the car outside the hotel for several days.
We did not touch it on 23 or 24 December, drove out when we needed it on Christmas Day, then checked out and drove home on Boxing Day. We were also allowed to take the car out and return during the stay, rather than paying for a separate long-stay car park.
You have to leave your car key with reception while the car is parked. During our three-night stay, they never needed to move ours.
The rooms are not luxurious, but for this trip we wanted a Paddington location, breakfast and parking. It gave us all three, which made it a very practical choice.
Address: 178–186 Sussex Gardens, London W2 1TU
