Christmas at Kew

I used to do Christmas at Kew with the family when my kids were small. The first couple of times, they loved it. As they grew older, they kind of fell out of love with it and we haven’t done it for a while now. As usual, the adverts for it started around June and I duly ignored them. As christmas approached my daughter suggested that she’d actually like to give it a go so I had a look to see what was left, tickets sell quick. I managed to get some tickets for a Monday and took a half day and off we went.

We were lucky with the weather. It was mild, dry and still. We had a 17.40 entry time, got there a bit early and got straight in. Once in, the paths were quite busy so it was a bit of a shuffle but all in all we really enjoyed it. There’s the obvious money making schemes, expensive food, drinks and a fairground in the middle with a helter skelter, carousel and a couple of other rides. We didn’t indulge in any of that. The tickets aren’t cheap in the first place. The show this year was also pretty good with a few really great displays. I’ve put a few of our favourites here but actually the trees in Kew were really the stars of the show. Bare branches, dramatically lit, looked really amazing. Where there were no flashing lights or moving parts, people tended not to stop to look so we could enjoy a moment of relative peace.

A Tim Burton inspired installation near the Temperate House was really magical. The music is the haunting theme from Edward Scissorhands and lights flooded the ground and the trees.

The cherry tree avenue at the end of the Temperate house had the bare trees lit in dramatic blood red and blue with a variation of the Carol of the Bells playing. As we watched, a fox boldly walked across (no picture!). I look forward to coming back to see this view in all its blossomy glory in the spring.

The real stars were the trees though. Bare and dramatically lit, they looked really stunning.

It’s an expensive outing but we did really enjoy it. It took a couple of hours to go round and that was without stopping for fairground rides, food or drinks.