24 November, 1, 4, 7-8, 11, 14-15, 18, 21-24, 26, 30 December, 10.45, 14.30, 18.30
Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol & Seasonal Traditions
All the delights and delicacies of a London Victorian Christmas with Charles Dickens’s famous story A Christmas Carol as your route map and inspiration. We’ll deck the streets of London with balls of jolly. Scrooge and Marley and the Cratchits… they’re all here. This was where Dickens’s imagination took wing and where the characters did their thing. And as we make their acquaintance we’ll spice things with warming seasonal stories of turkeys and boars’ heads, Christmas puds, mince pies and pantomimes; cards, crackers, Christmas trees and mistletoe. Let alone the bells that rang out on Christmas morning to wake Scrooge up, a much-changed character.

The meeting point for the Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol & Seasonal Traditions walk is just outside the exit of Tower Hill Tube. Meet by the Tower Hill Tram coffee stall.

The walk takes about two hours and ends across the street from St. Paul’s Cathedral and St. Paul’sTube Stop.

5, 14, 19, 21 December, 10.45
Eating Christmas
A Christmas Music Walking Tour with live music

Learn all about our traditional Christmas food. Turkey, stuffing, bread sauce, Brussels sprouts. Xmas pudding, Xmas cake, mince pies…you’ll be eating them soon. Pick up all sorts of titbits to astonish your Xmas dining companions – the turkeys that walked to London, the chequered history of the sprout, the rise and fall of the goose. Salivate over grand pudding recipes, shudder over workhouse Xmas fare. And the meaty past of the mince pie – make sure you eat 12 of them next month…and we end at that feast for the senses, Borough Market, where you can stock up on Xmas supplies.

Meet at Bank Underground Station (exit 3).

8, 18 December, 14.30; 27 December, 10.45
The Sherlock Holmes Christmas Walk
“Compliments of the season!” A goose and a hat are lost in a scuffle at a street corner. But where? Which street corner? A suspect spends time in a museum. But why? An investigation leads to a famous market. But how? We follow the crisscrossing paths of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson as they solve their only original Christmas-time case, and Arthur Conan Doyle as he reaches a crisis in his professional life. Where did the detective acquire his famous Stradivarius violin?

Where was the ‘Alpha’ public house which briefly hosted a hidden jewel? Where did Holmes himself live before he moved to 221b? Throw in a film location which links a silent screen Holmes and modern-day Sherlock, a fine house where one of Conan Doyle’s greatest friends lived, a theatre where the sleuth made a triumphant return on stage in the 1920s, and you have the recipe for this affectionate festive offering from the glory days of the Great Detective. Guided by , who “specialised in early detective fiction at university, played Dr Watson on stage, contributes to the Sherlock Holmes Journal, is the Audiobooks reader for the Dr John Watson series.”

Meet at Goodge Street Tube.

15 December, 14.00; 16 December, 18.30
The Christmas Music Walking Tour
A musical tour of the West End Christmas lights featuring locations from the movie inspired by the music of George Michael.

Meet at Tottenham Court Road Tube, exit 1.

25 December, 11.00
Christmas Morning, 1660 – Samuel Pepys’ London

£25.00 adults, £10.00 children
Yes, Christmas Morning 1660. Everybody knows that 1660 was the year of the Restoration. But it wasn’t just the monarchy that was “restored” in that year. What’s not so well known is that Christmas was banned between 1652 and 1660. The Ebeneezer Scrooge of that era was none other than the Protector himself, Oliver Cromwell. He certainly didn’t protect Christmas. He shot it down and shut it down. Hard to believe isn’t it – no Christmas in England for eight years. Talk about doing hard time. Cromwell and Co. put the boot in because, according to them, Christmas was a farrago of pagan traditions and popish nonsense. And as such it had to be extirpated. And so it was. But, happily, that all changed in 1660. Cromwell was kaput. Royalty – in the person of Charles II – was rip roaringly replevined, not to say rampant. Puritanism was purged. And part and parcel of all that was we got Christmas back. So Christmas morning 1660 – must have been pretty special, wouldn’t you say? And what’s neat is that – well, you weren’t there, but you can be there! This time round, I mean. All you have to do is meet our guides by the Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square at 11 am on Christmas Day and go on the Christmas Morning 1660 – Samuel Pepys’ London walk – a Christmas Restoration walk in every sense of the word! And what better figure to accompany us on our rounds than that quintessential Londoner – let alone the grestest diarist of them all – Samuel Pepys himself. We’re following in his footsteps. Going calling on the Westminster that he knew. And immortalised in the diary. Lucky us. Because Pepys’ Diary, begun in 1660, is the most entertaining and joyful autobiographical record ever kept. Thanks to the quality of the writing, the little anecdotes (they’re like plums in a Christmas pudding), the illuminating profiles, the indiscretions, the insults and – tying it altogether – the warmth of Pepys’ personality.

The meeting point is by the big Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square

25 December, 14.00
The Christmas Day Charles Dickens’ London Walk

£25.00 adults, £10.00 children
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me [Charles Dickens]” Our afternoon walk is all about the man who some think invented Christmas – he didn’t! He re-invented it! Before Dickens and his stories came along Christmas was a rather small celebration on the Christian calendar. It was Dickens whose words plumped, fluffed and sprinkled Christmas all over the world. So on Christmas afternoon we celebrate him, his words, his life, his London and his Christmas. A Christmas before Cola turned Santa red. A Christmas in the gaslight. A Christmas in London – Dickens’ London.

The Charles Dickens Christmas Day walk starts at 14.00. The meeting point is by the big Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. The walk ends in Covent Garden, very near the Strand and Trafalgar Square. And yes, there are cafes and restaurants in the area that will be open on Christmas Day.