What Have Queen Victoria, Thomas Edison and London's Christmas Lights Got in Common?
A revolving Christmas tree with 80 electric bulbs, a newspaper that thought London looked rather miserable, and two famous shopping streets with more Christmas lights than you could possibly imagine. Welcome to Christmas in London!
How Many Christmas Lights Does It Take to Illuminate
Regent Street and Oxford Street?
Go on, have a guess. A few thousand? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand?
Keep reading. The real number might genuinely surprise you!
Every December, London does something rather extraordinary. Illuminated angels stretch across Regent Street, thousands of stars sparkle above Oxford Street, and shopfronts glow as though someone's wrapped entire buildings in Christmas paper.
But where did it all start?
It's a properly good story. And it starts with a German princess, an American inventor and one very show-offy Christmas tree.
From Queen Victoria to Thomas Edison: How Christmas Got Its Sparkle
Before electricity, Christmas trees were decorated with real candles, a tradition particularly associated with Germany.
Queen Charlotte, King George III's German-born wife, is credited with bringing the first known Christmas tree to England in 1800. But it was Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who made it fashionable, after an 1848 illustration of the Royal Family around their tree appeared in the Illustrated London News. And then, as now, when the Royals did something, everyone copied it!
There was just one small design flaw.
A tree covered in open flames is not, strictly speaking, a great idea indoors!
Enter Thomas Edison.
In December 1880, Edison lit up the outside of his New Jersey laboratory with electric bulbs, partly to show off his new invention to passengers on the railway line running past.
Two years later, his business associate Edward H. Johnson strung 80 red, white and blue bulbs around a tree in his New York home. Apparently, that wasn't showy enough.
He then made the whole thing revolve!
Remember, most people didn't even have electricity in their homes yet. The idea caught on, although it took decades for electric lights to become affordable, and the burning-candles approach slowly faded out, for reasons that frankly need no further explanation.
We've come a long way since then. Although untangling a box of Christmas lights every December remains one of life's great unsolved mysteries!
How Did London Get Hooked on Christmas Lights?
According to the London Picture Archive, Regent Street had Christmas lights in some form as far back as 1882. But the modern tradition of organised Christmas street illuminations dates from 1954.
And the reason is wonderfully, unmistakably British.
A Daily Telegraph article had apparently described central London as drab and dull in the depths of winter, and the Regent Street Association decided enough was enough. They organised and financed a Christmas lights display. Oxford Street followed in 1959.
But here's a detail I particularly enjoyed digging up.
The lights became so popular that the House of Lords actually attempted to take action against those responsible because of the traffic obstruction they were causing!
Christmas traffic in London isn't a new problem, then. As a London cabbie, I can confirm that some things never change!
There's another twist, too. Regent Street's lights vanished entirely between 1972 and 1977, a casualty of recession and lack of funding. Proof that even Christmas magic has to balance its books! They returned in 1978 and have grown more spectacular ever since.
So, How Many Christmas Lights Are We Actually Talking About?
Remember that question from the beginning? Here's your answer.
In 2025, Regent Street's famous illuminated angels used over 300,000 LED lights. Oxford Street's display, approximately 5,000 illuminated stars, added another 300,000 LED bulbs.
That's more than 600,000 individual Christmas lights across just two London streets!
And that's before you even get to Bond Street, Carnaby Street, Covent Garden and Marylebone. I would not want to be the person whose job it is to find the one bulb that's gone out!
Regent Street's Angels: Quite a Pair of Wings
The enormous illuminated angels, officially known as The Spirit of Christmas, are one of London's most recognisable festive sights. Each has a wingspan of approximately 17 metres, and the design takes inspiration from Regent Street's original 1954 display, which also featured angels playing trumpets.
One of my all-time favourite photographs is of those angels soaring above my own London black taxi. It's exactly the sort of photograph I love creating for guests on my London Photo Taxi Tours.
The full story behind the angels deserves a blog of its own. So watch this space!
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Oxford Street and London's Spectacular Christmas Shopfronts
Don't spend the entire evening looking up. Some of London's most spectacular Christmas decorations are at street level!
Selfridges, Harrods and Fortnum & Mason put extraordinary effort into their festive windows, and Cartier on New Bond Street famously transforms its building into an enormous Christmas present, complete with a giant red bow.
The history of London's Christmas shop windows is another fascinating story. And another blog for another day!
Oxford Street Christmas Lights Stars London and Taxi Oxford Street Christmas Lights Stars London and Taxi Oxford Street Christmas Lights Stars London Black Cab Oxford Street Christmas Lights Stars London
Trafalgar Square: The Christmas Present with a Proper Story Behind It
Not every great Christmas decoration needs 300,000 LEDs to earn its place. Take the tree in Trafalgar Square.
Every year since 1947, the city of Oslo has gifted London a Christmas tree. Why?
During the Second World War, Nazi Germany occupied Norway, and King Haakon VII and the Norwegian government fled to Britain, spending the war years in exile here. After the war, the people of Oslo began sending an annual tree as a symbol of gratitude and friendship. A tradition that's never stopped.
The tree is typically a Norwegian spruce, over 20 metres tall and 50–60 years old, carefully selected from the forests around Oslo. It's decorated in traditional Norwegian style, with vertical strings of lights rather than the swags and wraps you'll see on London's other big trees.
It's probably not the most extravagant Christmas tree in London. But it might just be the one with the loveliest story.
Trafalgar Square Christmas tree and Hanukkah Menorah London Trafalgar Square Christmas tree present from Norway to London
London's Christmas Lights: Wonderful on Foot,
Even Better from a Warm Black Taxi!
Anyone who's visited London in December knows the truth. It's beautiful, it's atmospheric, and it's also absolutely freezing! Occasionally wet too, because, well, Britain.
Now picture something a little different. You're sitting inside a warm, dry, beautifully decorated London black taxi. Outside, the Christmas lights are sparkling and London is putting on one of its most spectacular shows of the year. Inside, there's a little basket of Christmas goodies waiting for you.
That's exactly what my London Christmas Lights Photo Taxi Tours are all about.
My private Christmas lights tours typically last around 2–3 hours, giving you time to enjoy some of the capital's most beautiful festive locations without spending the whole evening walking between them.
Whether you're planning a family Christmas tour of London, a private London sightseeing tour with friends or a special Christmas experience as a couple, it's entirely your tour, on your terms.
And because I'm a London tour guide and professional photographer as well as a cabbie, you'll hear the stories behind the city while I capture the memories. It's a tour of London with photography built in, and you'll be in the photographs this time, rather than always being the person taking them!
So if you're planning a family Christmas outing, looking for a private black taxi tour of London, or simply want to see the lights without freezing on the pavement all evening...
Come and join me!
Don't Just See London. Capture It!
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