‘Never again!’ I sigh every 6 January, as I pack away the abundance of Christmas decorations and baubles lovingly collected over the decades. ‘It’s too much!’ I moan to Percy. ‘Let’s go to a hot island next year and get away from it all…’ But I never do, because I just love Christmas. Every year in early November I eagerly unpack multiple boxes tenderly packed two years earlier, and the reason is because we like to spend Christmas in London one year and in LA the next, as we love both cities. I have quite a lot of extended family in each, so we know that celebrating in either one will be very ‘happy families’.
But it’s the run-ups to Christmas in each city that are quite different. In the US, everyone celebrates Thanksgiving, which comes at the end of November. To me it seems that Americans rate that holiday more highly than even Christmas. At Thanksgiving, the decorations of shopfronts and homes are all turkeys and pumpkins and autumn foliage, following the spooky ghosts and spiderwebs of Halloween (also a major celebration), but the shops are just full of the usual wares. Whereas in London it seems that the end of October is the beginning of the Christmas season. By then most shops have begun to install their Christmas ornaments and festive hangings, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby are singing Christmas songs and the shops are packed with Christmas-themed goodies.
By contrast, in LA, nothing goes up until the first week of December and even then, it’s quite low-key. Wilshire Boulevard, one of the most famous and popular streets, puts up the same tired old garlands, which have mostly lost their sparkle, and most of the big stores and boutiques in Beverly Hills have only muted embellishments, if any at all.
How fabulous London is as the days grow shorter and darker? Practically every establishment in the centre of the city gleams with glamorous twinkly lights, exquisite adornments and fantastic florals. Every hotel and restaurant in the capital goes out of its way to outdo the others. I thought the decor at Claridge’s was simply superb, but then we went to dine at the Savoy and it looked like a fairy land, with brilliant snowflake arrangements draped across the walls and ceilings. LA’s Christmas spirit is nowhere near as spirited as London’s.
Every church in London seems to celebrate the magical season with carol concerts. We attended one at St James’s Church in Piccadilly, the ‘Fayre of St James’s’, in aid of Ben Elliot’s charitable foundation for vulnerable children in London. There was a fine group of celebrities – Billy Crudup, Dominic West, Natascha McElhone, Richard E. Grant, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu (and me!) – who either recited a poem, read a story or sang a song. It was a most wonderful and convivial atmosphere. The church was beautifully yet simply decorated, and the pews chock-full of families, friends and other celebrities. And that’s only one of many similar events in churches all around our beautiful city. It seems the crème de la crème of film and theatre step out in the Christmas spirit – Dame Judi Dench in ‘The Story of Christmas’ at St George’s, Hanover Square, Robert De Niro switching on Stella McCartney’s lights… ahem… the lights in her Bond Street store, of course.
Carols too at the Albert Hall, at St Martin-in-the-Fields. I don’t think LA does anything like this. Angelenos don’t seem to have the same joyful Christmas spirit as we Londoners do. Despite the ghastly Budget, every street is a wonderland of imaginative celebration. Motcomb Street is lined with glistening fairy lights on lampposts, Elizabeth Street is aflame with flying angels and Oxford Street and Bond Street are so lit up with lights that I’m surprised Extinction Rebellion have not come out in protest.
But before I’m accused of denigrating our American cousins on their lack of Christmas spirit, I have to acknowledge that Christmas party invitations in LA flow fast and furious at the end of Thanksgiving (although I do miss my Christmas pudding, brandy butter and mince pies). Moreover, while the local authorities may not splash out, the lawns of private homes, festooned with animated Santas and reindeer gambolling in artificial snow and surrounded by trees overdecorated with more glimmering lights than a transatlantic liner, make up for the paucity of the city streets. And except for London, no one does it better than New York, with the giant Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, lavish street decorations, painstakingly produced windows and lights and glitziness everywhere.
Both London and LA are home to me at Christmas. And I know that when I fold away this year’s collection of Christmas tchotchkes, muttering ‘Never again’, a little voice in the back of my head will whisper: ‘LA next year!’
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