Liberty - Christmas Shop

Last post of 2010! First off, I wish you all a kind of late Merry Christmas, I hope you had a great time with your family, friends, or whoever you spent it with and I also wish you a happy new year.

And now on to this farewell 2010 post, which of course, deals with Christmas, this nice time of year, which ideally includes firs, snow, Christmas lights, presents and all that, but realistically involves A LOT of crowds.


Due to my love of the (ideal) Christmas time, when I walked into this small section of Liberty, I became pretty excited. I mean, did you see those lights?


Right?? Check out the wood, the tree, the lights... Liberty is a luxurious department store located on Regent Street, right in the center of the city. Luxurious because, for instance, in the clothing section they sell brands such as Burberry, Chloe, Jil Sander, Vivienne Westwood... Basically what I wear everyday to do my groceries. They also sell furniture, textiles, fancy stationery (kind of expensive, by the way) and more. The building itself is really beautiful though, on the inside and the outside, so you should totally check it out.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about today. Today I'm here to talk about the Christmas shop, located on the 4th floor. As you've seen in the previous pictures, they sell decorations for the tree (arranged by color!) and the house in general.


But in the adjacent room (probably my favorite), they have nice candy (the type you'd be sad to eat) and small presents, mostly games, which I love mainly because of their packaging. Most of them look vintage and come with beautiful illustrations. This whole area oozes an awesome Christmas feeling, like you're in a movie, so if you get a chance, do stop by! Hopefully these pictures will speak for themselves.


And to fully submerge yourself (I think I just made that expression up) in the spirit of Christmas, you should read Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien!

Christmas in London

Dear friends of the world wide web, Christmas is almost here and I find that truly exciting. I don't know why I keep being so thrilled about this time of the year, I guess I still remember the feeling I got when I woke up to find all the presents under the tree. Plus, Christmas lights are awesome (if they're done right). So I asked a good friend of mine who's living in London (and who, coincidentally, took me to tons of places I talk about here) to do a guest post about Christmas in London! Since there are so many (awesome) pictures, they don't show in this main page but click on 'Read more' under the first picture below and you'll see it all!

Clara asked me to do a guest post on her blog, so I figured it might be a good idea to feature one of our favourite subjects: Christmas! Holiday decorations started super early this year (Selfridges Christmas deparment has been open since August. Wat.) so that gave me plenty of chances to document some of London's prime Christmassy hotspots in both photo and animation form. Here we go!

Let the sweet be-cookied Christmas tree draw you in...

Stanfords

With this somewhat blurry picture, I introduce you to Stanfords. Stanfords is a big store devoted to traveling, and since I'm a huge fan of traveling, I had to talk about it. The store you can see on these pictures is the one located in Covent Garden, which opened in 1901.

Everything in this store is related to traveling: the literature section, maps, globes, the stationery, accessories and more.


On the ground floor you'll find maps and books about France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, travel literature, children books and games about traveling, movies and music. You can also find gifts such as shower curtains with maps on them, or special thumbtacks that you can put on maps on places you've visited. And, of course, there's my favorite corner, devoted to globes (quite pricey, though...):


Although if you want to see a really pricey globe, check this one, which is in the same floor but in the following room, and costs the not-to-be-despised sum of £8,999.


Right?? Let me get my checkbook.

On the floor you'll see a map of the world and at the back there's a café.

On the first floor you'll find maps of other European countries and international destinations. There are also very useful tools when it comes to traveling, such as first aid kits, knives, and stuff like that. On the floor there's a National Geographic map of the Himalayas. And if you look up you'll see a map of the solar system. Not bad, huh?

The basement is mostly devoted to England and London, of which a map covers the floor.


Here you'll see guides and books about England and London, and some old maps too!


The store is located on 12-14, Acre Street, and opens from 9h to 19h30, although you can see all that and more on their website!

The Tea House

Since this is a blog about London, it was obvious that I would end up talking about tea at some point. Although I must admit that I don't like tea at all, but I am a bit weird when it comes to drinks (which is quite annoying sometimes, but I can't help it...). Anyway - they sell other stuff besides tea here, but I'm guessing most of you enjoy tea.

The Tea House is a little shop located on Neal Street, very close to the Covent Garden tube station and perpendicular to Long Acre, where the awesome shop Stanfords is, which I'll talk about soon.


If you come to London and are planning on staying for more than a couple of days (which would be the obvious thing to do, of course), you should stop by this shop to get some tea and then enjoy it at 5pm, British style. They have a wide selection of teas - once you enter the shop you'll notice the strong smell of different herbs. Besides tea, they sell tools, the names of which I completely ignore, that are really helpful when it comes to making tea (you know, for instance, the little thingy you use to put the tea in and then put in the cup, how do you like my knowledge of the English vocabulary) (thingy eh).

And if you don't like said drink, or need more incentives to go to this shop, The Tea House also sells, among other things, various types of jam in jars of different sizes. When I went there I got a tiny jar of strawberry jam for 95p, which ended up being delicious.

All this you'll find on the first floor. But if you go upstairs, you'll find a big selection of cups, mugs, teapots, plates, jugs and more. Some are really beautiful, and some are a bit of a joke, but I guess we all have different tastes... Here are a few:


Maybe this isn't a total must, but it's located in Covent Garden and that area rules, so if you happen to be there, why not stop by to get a mini jar of ham or a dotted mug? For example.