Christmas in the UK

How the British celebrate Christmas

The British Christmas season gets going in November. Christmas puddings are traditionally made on Stir-up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent, high streets switch on their lights, and Christmas markets open in towns and cities. From 1 December, Advent calendars count down the days, and churches light Advent wreaths on the four Sundays before Christmas. Churches and community groups stage nativity plays, carol singers go from door to door or gather in town squares, and offices hold Christmas parties.

On Christmas Eve, many people attend a carol service or midnight Mass, and stockings are hung at the end of the bed or by the fireplace. A mince pie and a glass of sherry are left out for Father Christmas, with a carrot for his reindeer. Father Christmas is an old English figure of good cheer who merged with the American Santa Claus in the Victorian era; today the two names mean the same gift-bringer.

The Victorian Christmas: trees, cards and crackers

Much of the modern British Christmas took shape under Queen Victoria. Her German husband, Prince Albert, made the decorated Christmas tree fashionable: in 1848 the Illustrated London News published an engraving of the royal family around a tree hung with ornaments, and families across the country copied it. In 1843, Sir Henry Cole, later the founding director of the V&A, commissioned the first commercial Christmas card, printed in a run of 1,000. In the same decade the London confectioner Tom Smith invented the Christmas cracker, a twist of paper that later gained its "bang", a paper crown and a joke. Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, also published in 1843, helped make Christmas a festival of family, generosity and feasting.

Christmas Day in the UK

Christmas morning begins with stockings and presents under the tree. Some families go to church; the royal family attends a morning service at St Mary Magdalene Church on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk. The main event is Christmas dinner, usually eaten at lunchtime or in the early afternoon: roast turkey with all the trimmings, eaten in paper crowns from the crackers pulled at the start of the meal. The Christmas pudding is brought in last, often doused in brandy and set alight.

At 3pm, many households stop to watch or listen to the King's Christmas message. The royal Christmas broadcast began in 1932, when King George V spoke on the radio from Sandringham, and Queen Elizabeth II's message was first shown on television in 1957. The rest of the day is for Christmas television specials, games, walks and more food. In London, members of the Serpentine Swimming Club race in the cold water of Hyde Park's lake on Christmas morning, as they have since 1864, for a trophy first given by J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan.

Christmas in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

England

England's best-known Christmas sight is the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree, a Norway spruce given by the city of Oslo every year since 1947 as thanks for Britain's help to Norway in the Second World War. It is lit on the first Thursday of December. London's Regent Street and Oxford Street lights, department-store windows, ice rinks and the Winter Wonderland fair in Hyde Park draw crowds, and cities including Manchester, Birmingham, Bath and York host large Christmas markets. In January, cider-makers in Somerset and Herefordshire hold wassails, singing to apple trees to bless the coming harvest.

Scotland

For about 400 years Scotland barely celebrated Christmas. After the Protestant Reformation of 1560 the Kirk discouraged it as a Catholic feast, and in 1640 the Scottish Parliament abolished the Yule holiday. Christmas Day only became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958, and Boxing Day in 1974. As a result, Hogmanay, New Year's Eve, became Scotland's great winter festival, with first-footing: the first visitor after midnight brings luck, traditionally with gifts of coal, shortbread, black bun or whisky. Christmas is now celebrated much as in the rest of the UK, and Scotland keeps an extra bank holiday on 2 January. Read more about Christmas in Scotland.

Wales

Wales has two remarkable winter customs. The Plygain, strongest in Montgomeryshire and mid-Wales, was once an early-morning service on Christmas Day; today about 50 Plygain services are held each December and January, at which groups of singers come forward in turn to sing old unaccompanied Welsh carols in close harmony. The Mari Lwyd, from south Wales, is a horse's skull on a pole, draped in a white sheet and decorated with ribbons, carried from house to house over the Christmas season. Its party must win a contest of improvised verses, the pwnco, before being let in for food and drink. Welsh families also once held Noson Gyflaith, a toffee-making evening, and on New Year's Day the young went from door to door collecting calennig, New Year gifts. Read more about Christmas in Wales.

Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, Christmas is widely observed by both Protestant and Catholic communities, with church services playing a large part. Belfast's Christmas market fills the grounds of City Hall, and since 1976 the Dean of Belfast has sat out on the steps of St Anne's Cathedral in the days before Christmas, collecting for charities. The tradition is known as the Black Santa sit-out, after the black cloak the first dean wore. See also Christmas in Ireland.

Lights, carols and pantomime

Carols are at the heart of the British Christmas. On Christmas Eve at 3pm, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is broadcast live on BBC radio from King's College, Cambridge. First held in 1918 and broadcast since 1928, it always opens with a solo chorister singing the first verse of "Once in Royal David's City". Churches, cathedrals and community choirs across the country hold their own carol services through December.

Pantomime is a uniquely British Christmas theatre tradition. From late November to January, theatres stage comic versions of fairy tales such as Cinderella, Aladdin or Jack and the Beanstalk, with a pantomime dame played by a man, slapstick, songs and audience shouts of "He's behind you!" and "Oh no it isn't!". Other seasonal fixtures include the race for the Christmas number one single, Christmas television specials and Christmas jumpers.

Traditional British Christmas food

A silver coin was once stirred into the Christmas pudding, and whoever found it in their portion was promised good luck for the year.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day, 26 December, is a bank holiday across the UK. The name is usually traced to the "Christmas boxes" of money or gifts once given to servants, apprentices and tradespeople the day after Christmas. Today it is a day for visiting family, eating leftovers and walking off the feast. It is one of the biggest days in the sporting calendar, with a full programme of football and horse racing, including the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park, and it marks the start of the post-Christmas sales. In 2026, Boxing Day falls on a Saturday, so the bank holiday is moved to Monday, 28 December.

UK Christmas season dates 2026

Christmas in the UK: frequently asked questions

Christmas in nearby countries