New Year's Eve Events around Great Britain
We hope you have spent a lovely Christmas, surrounded by your family in a nicely lit home. You may have tried a Christmas barbecue in your garden for a change but we are pretty sure you have kept a home-made Christmas cake or a Christmas pudding on the menu!
Now that you have rested a bit on Boxing Day, you are probably wondering about what to do on New Year’s Eve. The idea of an intimate supper at home is tempting after all the Christmas buzz, and you can already picture a quiet night in to enjoy the beauty of your Christmas lights and the presence of the felt robin you will soon have to put in the attic until next Christmas.
But it’s New Year’s Eve, so you want to do something you don’t do every day. Many restaurants and pubs offer special menus. Many venues will be seeing 2012 out with a themed party, and there are all sorts of events around the UK. Where are the best places to celebrate New Year?
The best places to be on New Year’s Eve
In Barnes
Where better than our home turf of Barnes? Locally to our Barnes shop, we have the Tree House, the Strada or the Victoria which offer a New Year’s Eve Menu, while the White Hart plans a prohibition-themed night, to name but a few. Finding a place to dine is fairly easy if you book it early enough.
On 1st January early risers will be able to enjoy some bird-watching with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s Tick and Twitch Walk where volunteers will show you the best spots to see some of the birds you can find in January in the London WWT Centre. You can expect to see bearded tits, waxwings, scaups, and common scoters, even if it is never certain which birds you will encounter.
In Scotland
The Scottish celebrate Hogmanay in style. Edinburgh is expecting 80,000 people (!) for its impressive Hogmanay festivities with live music and fireworks, without forgetting Robert Burns’ auld lang syne song.
If you are after smaller crowds many Scottish towns will organise celebrations, often involving fire. A street festival with street theatre and obviously pipers is planned in Glasgow, a Flambeaux procession is expected in Comrie, and Stonehaven has two events planned for 31st December: a Fireballs Festival and a Fireballs Ceremony. We wish we lived in Stonehaven or Comrie to be able to see the whole show from our garden, sitting on our Fermob chairs!
In Wales
The Scots have Hogmanay, the Welsh have Calennig, “New Year’s Gift”, and Cardiff’s Calennig this year involves live music and midnight skating at the open-air ice rink in front of the civic centre, followed by midnight fireworks.
An exceptional way of spending New Year’s Eve is probably to join a midnight excursion in the Black Mountains - part of the Brecon Beacons National Park - to climb up Skirrid Fawr, the “Holy Mountain”. You can also join the Nos Galan race in Rhondda, with a special sports-related guest every year who remains a mystery until the last minute.
In England
Fancy dress, flaming barrels of tar and an impressive bonfire are on the menu in Allendale, Northumberland for its traditional Tar Bar’l Ceremony.
Newcastle-upon-Thyne organises a Winter Carnival revolving around Norse mythology. Meet Vikings and Norse gods in the streets of Newcastle and finish the year with midnight fireworks!
If you like fancy dress events and live in Southern England or feel like going there, you have four places to choose from: in Cornwall St Ives and Looe attract many dressed up visitors, and in Devon Dartmouth and Bideford are people’s favourite places to see the year out.
In London
You have so many events in London that it is hard to choose. The moment we will be expecting is certainly the fireworks by the London Eye, introduced by Big Ben’s chimes. If you want to go in the streets a live DJ will entertain you before the fireworks from 10pm. If you prefer to enjoy the fireworks from further away in order to avoid the crowds, you can have a look at the best bars to watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks recommended by viewlondon.co.uk.
In your own garden
We couldn’t be fans of the garden without recommending you see the New Year in from your own garden. You wouldn’t spend all night outside at this time of year, of course, but if you have your own party, you may well choose to set off your own fireworks in the garden. Simply remember to set up the fireworks before nightfall, as far as possible from roads and houses and to follow the safety procedures for a safe entrance into 2013!
We wish you all the best for 2013 and we will now leave you to your New Year’s Eve preparations. See you next year!
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Posted by Iconography Ltd
27th December 2012
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