The Laboratory

This weekend just gone was a great opportunity to visit all the Scandi Christmas Fairs in London. From the Swedish Church in Marylebone to the Finnish and Norwegian Churches in Rotherhithe, there are crafts, marzipan pigs, glög, Moomins, jellies and grilled reindeer. It's not too late - the Finnish Church has another one next weekend at  https://britannia.merimieskirkko.fi/en/2024/10/finnish-christmas-fair-2024/

It wouldn't be Christmas without a visit to the Swedish Royal Court, where Prinsessen Estelle and her little brother Prins Oscar are here to wish you "God Jul" in a photo taken by their mother, Victoria. Here's this year's video: You can see all their previous seasonal shenanigans here .

Penultimate day, so here's a round-up of all the Advent Calendar material we never got round to on other days. First up, I for one welcome our new robot reindeer overlords: In other disturbing imagery, the Christmas tree at St Pancras this year was made up of the bodies of hundreds of stuffed animals: A picture of Sarah's first watch, which her dad brought back from America in the early 80s: And finally a Swedish sign that says (roughly) "All signs are prohibited except those signs which prohibit other signs" #logical:

It's the first Saturday in December, and so it's time for the Creens to put up their Christmas tree. This year we had been keeping him in the back garden in preparation, so now he's covered in snow and we'll have to  dry him off a bit before decorating him. Yesterday we went to London and saw the Norwegian tree in Trafalgar Square: The 20-metre tree was selected from a forest near Oslo in November and was then shipped across the North Sea. It has been decorated in a traditional Norwegian style with 500 white lights using halogen bulbs. They will be lit each day until Tuesday 5 January 2011, after which the tree will be recycled. So that Sweden doesn't feel left out of the Scandinavian round-up, we'll tell you about a concert at the Wigmore Hall later this month: It sounds just that bit nicer than the usual tat concerts at the Royal Albert Hall that we normally end up mentioning here. And free gingerbread? We'll get booking now! The Tate Brita...