A London Christmas

Leaving Christmas shopping to the eleventh hour is not an entirely bad idea when your hunting ground is London decked out for the season. 
Although the Siberian freeze has receded and been replaced by floods, so that we are now dreaming only of a wet Christmas, London is still majestic and enchanting at this time of year.

Regent Street, celebrating the twelve days of Christmas, was where I began, with a side trip to Liberty's ... 

showing us better than anyone how to do Christmas with flowers and greenery ...

Heading onwards via Bond Street towards Piccadilly ... What recession? declared Bond Street's jewellers and the Ritz (bottom left), though closing-down sales on Piccadilly told a different story ...

Immortal ghosts these two, heedless of the rain, FDR must have said something funny to make the curmudgeonly Winston crack a smile ...

Who would dare challenge these two burly uniformed gents watching over the entrance to the Burlington Arcade?

... where Santa was moonlighting with a little shoe-shine business.

One could take respite from the rain and shopping here in the Royal Academy, where it's business as usual ...

but I was pressing on to pick up treats for the Christmas table at Fortnum's ... whose windows this year are Dick Whittington-themed

and from here on to Hatchards for book gifts ... their windows impossible to resist.

After a pit-stop at Richoux's for tea and scones, it was properly dark outside, the Piccadilly Arcade glowing in lantern light

and to counter the scones I took a long walk northwards again via Berkeley Square, where I imagined a nightingale sang above a giant silvery Christmas tree ...

and the windows of grand homes made me want to press my nose longingly against the glass ...

and magic lanterns danced in trees ...

until I was almost full circle back in Oxford Street, where never mind the rain, there were sparkling umbrellas floating in the air in front of Selfridges' purply-illuminated grand pillars ...

... and where, after braving the store's hectic crowds and queues (though always polite and patient - how I love that about the English!), my final reward was to plop myself down, surrounded by bags, for a glass of bubbly, Christmas shopping done.