Christmas is big in London. I suppose since there is no Thanksgiving and Halloween is a much less significant thing here (rendering only a shelf or two in the grocery store), there is little else to make Autumn/early winter festive, but seriously, nobody needs to hear Christmas music in mid-October. And the window displays lose their splendor if they do not change for 3 months.
I admit it: I’m a Grinch. I grew up with Hannukah, and those “8 Crazy Nights” Adam Sandler sings of? Not so crazy. The first night is fun and the last night is nice when the whole menorah is all lit up, but between those two nights it’s just underwhelming. Even in my hometown of Mini-Jerusalem, we were bombarded with Christmas stuff and constant reminders that Santa would not be shimmying down our chimneys anytime soon.
But my friends here are determined to be the Cindy Lou to my Grinch and get me in the spirit of things (which I will consent to only now that it is November- again, nobody needs the Christmas spirit before Halloween). So on Saturday morning we decided to go to go to the Christmas Parade at Harrod’s. The parade is a big deal- they shut down Knightsbridge and there’s lot of dancers and people, until, at last Father Christmas arrives and is greeted by Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of Harrod’s, who leads Father Christmas into the Christmas Grotto, where he stays, meeting children (who have tickets- there is none of this line-up-and-wait-three-hours business here like there is in the States) until Christmas.
I, being brilliant, decide not to check the service announcements for the tube ahead of time, thinking the Piccadilly line is never down. So of course, when I get to the tube, I learn it’s running on a very delayed service. Delightful. So I was very late getting to Harrod’s, unlike my friends who were early enough to get the good spots. There was a huge crowd preventing me from getting over to them, so I had to go to the front of the store (less desirable) and look like the 20-year-old loser who doesn’t have any friends or kids to watch the parade with.
In honor of the 70th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz movie, Harrod’s has gone all Oz-themed for the holidays, which somehow benefits the Great Ormand Street Children’s Hospital, though I’m not sure how. The windows are actually really cool, but my spot for the parade just happened to be directly in front of the window that was blasting the commercial for the “70th Anniversary Collector’s Item DVD” on a continuous loop. For an hour. I can now recite it from memory. On the other side of my head was a baby who screamed the entire time. Such a fun morning for me.
But even a Grinch can appreciate a good parade, and it was really nice. Nowhere near as good as the Macy’s Day Parade, but it was still fun. I took lots of pictures:
Window Displays (above and below)
Emerald City Dancers
Dancing and hissing witches
The Tinman
Dancing Dorothys
London's version of the Rockettes (but not nearly as good)
Really cute little boys. Some of them were really good at doing the Tin-Men walk, others not so much. They wished us a "Happy Christmas".
The band who led the parade
The Yellow Brick Road is lined with Burberry Handbags :-)
Father Christmas!
After the parade, I found my friends, who took pictures of us covered in the fake snow- as soon as I get them I'll post them here.
