On Christmas Eve, with a limited number of London sights
open, we had morning reservations on the London Eye and then an afternoon
Thames River cruise. We also had Christmas
Eve tickets to Midnight Mass at Westminster Abbey (free tickets, but I had to
wake up in the middle of the night to snag 4 online several weeks earlier). No public transportation would be running
after about 6pm on the 24th and we were told that the only way to get
a taxi to take us to and/or from Westminster Abbey for Midnight Mass would be
to pay the taxi driver for the entire time he waits for us during the service. That didn’t really seem reasonable so we made
the decision that we were going to make the walk from Westminster Abbey back to
our hotel in the early morning hours of Christmas Day after the service. Our walk would take us by Buckingham Palace
and then through an upscale residential part of London, all areas that felt pretty
safe. Regardless, making the walk in the
daylight to get the lay of the land seemed like a good idea and Westminster
Abbey was on the way to the London Eye anyways.
Our morning walk took us through beautifully festive and
fancy Mayfair (see Instagram photos of the Bentley, Annabel’s storefront
covered by a Christmas tree, and garland-framed doorways), on the paths through
a muddy (from the previous day’s rains) Green Park, and right up to Buckingham
Palace. After two days in London, this
was our first glimpse of Buckingham Palace (and later Westminster Abbey, Big
Ben, and the London Eye). The Queen wasn’t
in residence, spending Christmas with her family at the Sandringham Estate (“the
much-loved country retreat of her Majesty the Queen”, about 2 ½ hours northeast
of London), but we didn’t miss her and enjoyed exploring the grounds. From Buckingham Palace, we walked along St.
James’s Park on the Birdcage Walk and on to Westminster Abbey (about a
35-minute walk in total from the hotel…it was going to be a late night).
From Westminster Abbey, we turned the corner past Winston Churchill’s
statue at Parliament Square and there was Big Ben! And it was anticlimactic—although, we knew Elizabeth
Tower and the Houses of Parliament were in the midst of a multi-year renovation
project—because it was a bummer that this icon of London was completely covered
in scaffolding during our visit. We’ll
just have to come back to London when it looks shiny and new again.
Recently, when I asked Ella and Jack apart from each other
what their favorite activity in London was, they both, without hesitation, said
the London Eye. We did have quite the
view for our 30-minute ride and the sky had really cleared by the end of it, but
I think Jonathan and I were happy to have our feet on solid ground again at the
end. We had some time to kill before our
River Thames cruise so we made our way back to St. Paul’s Cathedral. We decided against taking the time for an
inside tour as the cloudy and gray morning had turned into a glorious clear and
crisp blue-skied midday. From St. Paul’s
we crossed the Thames via the Millennium Bridge to the Southbank and walked along
the Queen’s Walk back to the London Eye.
Before our river cruise, we stopped for a delicious ramen noodle bowl
lunch at Wagamama. Our Thames river
cruise provided some terrific views of the House of Parliament, Shakespeare’s
Globe Theatre, the HMS Belfast, and Tower Bridge. Unfortunately we didn’t get seats up top
outside, so all of my pictures from the cruise have the glare of the window.
After a few hours rest back at our hotel, we dressed up for
our Christmas Eve service and headed back out for a dinner at Jamie’s Italian
(Jamie Oliver’s restaurant—love him, but the meal was just okay). We were among the first group in line for the
Midnight Mass service and therefore got seats just to the side of the priest at
the pulpit. While we waited for the
service to begin, we used the excuse of trips to the bathroom to explore a
little bit and take in our surroundings a bit—see Poet’s Corner, the Cloisters,
and the Christmas Crib nativity display.
As Episcopalians, we felt very at home with the traditions of the
Anglican service, but the immensity of attending a service within Westminster Abbey
did not escape us. Christmas Eve Midnight
Mass, with communion, in Westminster Abbey is not an experience we will soon
forget. I think I’d have to say that was
my favorite experience in London, one of those once-in-a-lifetime encounters
that is truly special. It was 1:30am by
the time we made it back to our hotel after the service. Merry Christmas! And time for bed…
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