Tinsel, tickets and the price of leaving it late
The Christmas things worth sorting in October, while there are still decent seats, sensible prices and baubles that don't look like a last-minute apology.
Christmas does not need to arrive in October. Nobody is asking you to put a Santa hat on the dog, watch Love Actually on a loop or start calling every cup of tea “festive”. But there is a bit of Christmas that does belong here, and it is the boring-looking bit that saves you a small fortune and a bad mood later on. By the time December arrives, everyone suddenly decides they would quite like a family day out, a decent panto, a big night at the theatre or a wander around some lights with an overpriced hot chocolate. Fair enough. The trouble is that thousands of other people have had exactly the same idea, generally a week earlier, and they have already taken the good tickets. This is not about turning Christmas into a project plan. It is about making one or two proper plans now, then leaving yourself room to enjoy the season when it gets here. Book the bit you’ll actually remember Start with the thing that gives December some shape. Not five things. One. Maybe that is a panto with the kids, a theatre trip with someone you never see enough of, a long-planned Christmas market weekend, or a light trail that gets everyone out of the house after dark. If you are in or near London, Christmas at Kew runs from 13 November to 3 January this year, has timed entry, and is already warning that December availability is going. That does not mean Kew is the only answer. It means that the popular version of this sort of thing has already started moving. Light trails are a good excuse to put on a coat and leave the house. Photo: Mick Haupt / Unsplash Pick the day before you pick the attraction. There is no point finding the perfect Christmas show if it lands on the one Saturday when half the family is at a work do, someone is at football, and your cousin is hosting the annual argument about whether the roast potatoes need rosemary. Work out who you want to go with, choose a date, then see what is available nearby. If you want something more grown-up than a mascot in a velvet suit shouting “OH YES I AM”, a carol service in a historic setting is a very good way to make an ordinary weekday evening feel like Christmas has properly started. Or use the excuse to see a West End theatre show . There are worse ways to spend a cold night than sitting in a warm theatre while somebody else does all the singing. A proper night out, with none of the washing up. Photo: Dimitris Asproloupos / Unsplash Buy the decorations before they become a personal insult There is a particular sort of late-November shopping trip that begins with “we only need a few bits” and ends with you holding a crushed box of lights, a plastic reindeer with one antler, and a receipt that could have funded a modest European city break. If you know you will use something, buy it now. Lights. A wreath. The bits that fill the gaps in the box you have owned since 2014. Cards, wrapping paper and crackers if you are the sort of person who remembers where they are in time. You do not need to buy a new colour scheme every year because a garden centre has put “cinnamon champagne” on a bauble. In fact, you probably should not. The rule is simple: buy the things you will use again, leave the panic-bought nonsense on the shelf, and do not wait until the choice is worse and the price has somehow gone up. Future You will be grateful, even if Future You does still manage to lose the scissors on Christmas Eve. Give yourself a December that is not all errands It is very easy to fill December with things that need doing: presents, food, school events, work events, family logistics, a trip to buy batteries because nobody thought of batteries. A good festive plan needs at least one thing that exists purely because it will be nice. That could be as simple as choosing a night to walk around your local lights with a takeaway coffee, or making a morning of cutting down your own Christmas tree rather than buying one under fluorescent lighting while a queue forms behind you. It could be a Christmas market, but only if you actually enjoy Christmas markets. They are not compulsory, despite what Instagram would have you believe. The point is not to achieve a flawless festive season. That sounds exhausting, and frankly a bit suspicious. The point is to make sure that, somewhere between the present-buying and the washing up, there is a day or evening you are looking forward to. Make a little Christmas list This is exactly the sort of moment for a smaller list inside your bigger 42. Make one called “Christmas 2026”, add the thing you have booked, then add two or three smaller ideas around it. One can be free. One can be for somebody else. One can be the sort of thing you nearly always say you will do, then somehow never quite get round to. You do not need to complete every item by 25 December, and nobody is handing out certificates. You are just giving the next couple of months a better chance of containing more than queues, receipts and an argument about where the Sellotape has gone. Sort the tickets. Buy the tinsel you actually need. Then put Christmas away again for a few weeks and get on with autumn. December will arrive soon enough, but it will be a lot more enjoyable if you are not trying to buy the last decent panto seat from Row ZZ while balancing a broken tree topper under one arm.