Street decorations in London

 'You haven't posted in ages,' you say accusingly.

YEAH I KNOW.

You see, this time of year is when elves like myself are traditionally overworked, while that fat lump of a Santa Claus gets all the credit.

So I'm going on strike until the New Year, to buck the trend.

Anyway. Here are the best street decorations around London. The one above is South Molton Street, which kind of looks like it's a Christmas tree as well as an archway into shameless consumerism. Cool.

 Meanwhile, New Bond Street thinks it's a peacock. Awesome.

And finally, Regent Street screams, 'Yes, we're sponsored. No, we don't even intend to watch the film, but they offered to pay for our lights, so, whatever.............'

Merry Christmas!

Elf Dryadalis

Christmas Trees of London 2014

It's time for another countdown. This time, of the Christmas Trees of London (oh, you already worked that out from the post title? Well, aren't you smart.). We start off, as ever, with the most visually offensive, aesthetically shocking and plain revolting, before gliding upwards to levels of sublime bliss. Sort of.

4. Fenwick

What. Is. This.

I mean, what is it?

It's like what happens when you feed a flock of pigeons a mixture of glitter and laxatives, then let them loose on a tree.

Tinsel overload, people. I appreciate the 45,673 hours it took to hang up all those little balls of Christmas spirit, but sometimes, when it comes to white baubles, less is more.

3. Trafalgar Square

Umm, okay, when I advocated 'Less is more', I didn't mean to more or less leave the tree plain! Honestly. You just can't win.

This homage to lights in straight lines looks utterly underwhelming, until you put it in context next to the National Gallery and the rest of the Square. Like this.

Ahh. That's cuter. And it looks even better at night.

Don't hate the blur, people. That's just enthusiastic camera shake. And trying not to get run over whilst taking the photo.

2. The British Library

It twinkles. It sparkles. It's so dark you can't even see the tree.

This is why fairy lights were invented. So you don't walk into a 10ft concoction of pine needles on your way to find the perfect book.

Here we have a lovely show of what happens when you carefully place fairy lights, but don't make it too obvious that you've stressed for half a year over precisely how to display the darn things. So it looks almost random, like you haven't stressed for half a year.

But people will know you've stressed for half a year. Because it doesn't look like you've stressed...........oh, you get what I mean.

1. Fortnum & Masons

'You filthy hypocrite', you cry, fingers pointed accusingly at the Fenwick/Fortnum tree similarities, 'This one looks like the pigeons have been smoking something illegal'.

Ah, yes. There are white baubles, fairy lights and a very fat tree. But alas, dear readers, notice the difference. This tree looks so inviting. The baubles are well-spaced out, so it doesn't look messy, and the fairy lights light up the background so the whole monstrosity, sorry, display, looks like a postcard picture.

The tree is inside Fornum and Masons, and it's free to look at. I emphasise this, because if you do go inside, thinking you'll look at the tree and then maybe pick up a gift or two, FORGET IT.

Unless, of course, you are a multi-millionaire, in which case donations are gladly accepted, with Elf's deepest gratitude. (If you don't wish to donate, please list your reasons for not doing so on the back of a £50 note and send it to me. I'll be sure to read each one very carefully).

Because everything here costs about a zillion pounds, even the chocolates. And the baubles aren't exactly cheap either.

At least it's free to look.

See you soon,

Elf Dryadalis

Christmas shop windows in Oxford Street

It's okay. You're not hallucinating. This is actually a penguin giving a cookery lesson.

In the shop window of John Lewis.

The penguin's not real.

'Oh dear!,' you exclaim, 'I've already called the RSPCA'.

Right then. That's your attitude, is it? Here's a penguin, happily making a calorific monstrosity for its kids, and you think it's cruelty. Think about your poor old Elf. I walked around for three hours to reach the penguin cookery demonstration (that is to say, the penguin doing some cooking, not someone cooking a penguin), and have a good old glimpse of all the shop windows along Oxford Street too.

The things I do for this blog.

Anyway, here I am proud to present to you, the famous (not really) Elf Dryadalis' Award for the Best Window Display. Let's go through the countdown.

5) Marks and Spencer

'What's that?' you ask, 'A multi-storey car park?'

Well, yes, I admit that it isn't exciting. In the slightest. The strings of lights change colour, and that's about it. It's in fifth place because I admire Marks and Spencer's cheek in using the same old 'Magic & Sparkle' advertising manta for about the millionth year in a row.

The changing colours are also vaguely hypnotising.

4) Debenhams

'Found it!' the advertising proudly proclaims. Yes, my dear, but what have you found? The perfect present? Old socks you dropped down the sofa last year? I presume it is the former, although, you never know, Debenhams does smell, sorry, sell, socks.

It's an impressive horde, certainly, but it's just overwhelming. All the products are just piled up, and I'm not getting the 'I MUST HAVE THAT SPARKLY THING RIGHT NOW' vibe. And let's face it, vibes for sparkly things are what Christmas is all about. (Who's Jesus? Never heard of the guy).

Aha. So that's what the 'Found it' tag is for. Someone found the building. And stuck a tag on it. Mystery solved.

3) Boots

Aww. This looks so traditional. That is to say, as traditional as you can get with metres of electrical lights, modern plastics and synthetic sparkles. But you get what I mean. It's got stars, it says 'Merry Christmas' (why, thank you, but it's only the 3rd of December), it screams at you from across the street.

Oh, and I have no idea if it's actually coming from Boots, but around that area of Oxford Street, fake foam snow is falling. It looks cool, and confuses everyone.

And you think, 'Oh dear, this might be slippery, I might have to get new boots'. And by magical advertising osmosis, you think, 'Boots!' and run across. Only to realise they don't actually sell boots.


2) John Lewis

They have a penguin in a bra. That should surely mean John Lewis cinches the top spot, but it's just that I'M SICK OF PENGUINS. They're everywhere. On that bloomin' advert, sold in stores (not the real ones! Put down your phone to the police), even in little promotional flyers advising me to adopt one this Christmas. Penguins are bigger than me, okay. I'm not adopting anything that could stomp me.

You might think that putting a penguin in a bra is rude. Well, just wait till you see this.

Perhaps it's time to move on.

In other news, penguins have been so sick of appearing on screen that they've seized equipment and are turning the cameras back on the humans.

In this shocking image, we see a full-sized penguin in a heated confrontation with the black cylinders of doom.
I presume that this is meant to make us buy cameras. But I'm too busy wondering how a penguin could possibly operate the controls on a DSLR, and whether or not the cameras would freeze up in an arctic environment. I tried asking the penguins, but they were unresponsive. So rude.

1) Selfridges

Father Christmas has given up. He followed his new GPS to try and find some kids' homes, and after ending up in a cul-de-sac, a disused quarry and a ditch, he's finally gone back to the paper version.

However, he now needs a hammer to break out of Selfridges' shop window.

Here, Selfridges gives the unwitting shopper due warning: this window is gold, because you'll need plenty of it to buy anything inside. A great 'Buyer Beware' campaign.

Umm, that's not an entire building stuffed inside a window - it's just the reflection (unless the building had GPS too, and went the same way as Father Christmas).

It's so sparkly. Selfridges has turned its products into set pieces, and made the shopper want to look in the windows, rather than hurry by, muttering dark thoughts about how Scrooge had the right idea (although of course, you may be muttering this anyway if you walk in and see the prices).

Selfridges is very confident of itself; it's even called its shop 'Destination Christmas' (so that's what Father Christmas typed into his sat nav). It's framed by a couple of mushrooms, which either give the place an 'Alice in Wonderland' type feel, or make you consider smoking a couple to get over the stress of Christmas shopping.

If you're feeling the it's the latter, I suggest you just cancel Christmas. There's no point in smoking mushrooms out of stress, when you could just wait until Boxing Day, buy up all the half price Christmas puddings, and get high on those instead.

And finally, a personal note, if I may. Of course I may, it's my blog. I notice this stunning unicorn advertising what looks like a doormat. Or it could be a £1000 throw. You never know these days.

Anyway, I applaud Selfridges' brave decision to help increase the employment rates amongst my fellow fantasy creatures. It's a long hard road until we are represented in Parliament, but until then, we'll be campaigning for equal labour rights and representation in the boardroom.

Mental? Perhaps. But so would you be if you spent three hours walking along Oxford Street near Christmas time.

See you soon,

Elf Dryadalis