We all want a little bit of cheer right now of 12 months, when nights are lengthy and days are sometimes darkish – possibly now greater than ever. Fortunately, the UK’s stately properties, galleries, gardens, theatres, church buildings and steam trains have been planning forward and are prepared with artwork and music, hearth and ice, and mince pies with Santa. Even probably the most resolute Scrooge ought to discover one thing to take pleasure in.

Sound and light-weight

Annually, extra venues be a part of the floodlit enjoyable, and there at the moment are tons of of sunshine exhibits across the nation, usually set to stirring seasonal music. New this 12 months are Hatfield Park, Hertfordshire, the place Elizabeth I grew up, and Leeds Fort in Kent. One in all Europe’s largest metropolis parks, Roundhay Park in Leeds, can also be launching a lightweight path, full with a fairy-lit tunnel and a hearth backyard, that winds by way of the timber and previous the lake (varied dates in Dec).

For the tenth anniversary of the fast-selling epic mild path at Kew Gardens in south-west London, there are new options, together with the phantasm of a watery abyss within the lake, in addition to Instagrammable projections and lasers taking part in over the Palm Home (till 8 Jan). There’s a lantern stroll at Wakehurst, Kew’s wilder sister backyard in West Sussex, together with immersive soundscapes and the UK’s tallest residing Christmas tree, embellished with 1,800 fairy lights (till 1 Jan).

There’s a brand new mile-long path around the Shugborough Property in Staffordshire this winter, the place a festoon-hung walkway leads by way of the after-dark gardens, lighting up pure and architectural options (till 1 Jan). In close by Lichfield, England’s solely triple-spired medieval cathedral is providing a sound-and-light present referred to as Sing, Choirs of Angels. Frederick Oakeley, who lived in Lichfield, translated the Latin carol Adeste Fideles into the English O Come All Ye Trustworthy. Projection artists Illuminos have primarily based their installations on this fashionable carol and the story of the nativity (16-20 Dec).

There’s a nativity-themed sound-and-light present in Sheffield too. The manger might be projected over the cathedral, in and out, bathing the facade in sundown colors or spangling the columns with stars (29 Nov-4 Dec). The identical group, Luxmuralis, are additionally making a spectacular set up at Liverpool cathedral, referred to as The Angels are Coming (2-9 Dec) and Winchester cathedral’s Star of Surprise, illuminating the excessive arches and vaulted ceiling (13-18 Dec).

Sparkly castles

Begin with a bracing stroll on the seaside and a kipper stottie on the Lord Crewe in Bamburgh, Northumberland, then climb a sandy path by way of banks of ivy to the fort. Gold rings, partridges in pear timber, maids-a-milking … this 12 months’s decorations within the grand corridor and staterooms, with theatrical units and lighting, are impressed by The Twelve Days of Christmas (till 8 Jan).

At Windsor Fort, Berkshire, the lampposts are wreathed in evergreens, the grand staircase is garlanded, and a twinkling six-metre Christmas tree, harvested from the neighbouring Nice Park, stands in St George’s Corridor, the place native choirs might be carolling on 8, 9 and 15 Dec. With a festive menu within the fort’s first cafe, opened in 2020 within the medieval undercroft, the present goes on on the new king’s official residence (till 2 Jan).

The rooms inside chateau-style Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, are decked and open to the general public for the primary winter season since 2019. The conservatory is filled with ferns and marble statues, and the Crimson Drawing Room has a gold ceiling, candelabras and portraits by Gainsborough. Outdoors you’ll discover a Christmas market and a lightweight path by way of the landscaped grounds (till 2 Jan).

This 12 months’s Kingdom of the Snow Queen at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire entails supersized snowflakes and silver-frosted forests shimmering by way of the procession of staterooms. Outdoors, there’ll be a lavish mild path (guide on-line) and a Christmas market (till 2 Jan).

Brighton and Hove Artists Open Homes are working a winter competition on weekends till 11 Dec. Alongside prints, work, ceramics, they are going to be promoting jewelry, knitted hot-water-bottle covers, lambswool gloves and extra. Playing cards and photos are sometimes impressed by native seascapes or Brighton’s starling murmurations, which swirl by way of the winter sundown over the pier.

Cockpit Open Studios in London is holding weekend gross sales in Bloomsbury (24-27 Nov) and Deptford (2-4 Dec) and championing the concept of sustainable gradual design. The Makers Guild in Wales has a Winter Present at Cardiff Bay, with handmade decorations and stocking fillers, in addition to bigger artworks in glass, leather-based, patchwork or carved wooden (till 8 Jan).

There’s a Made in East Yorkshire market within the minster city of Beverley (7-9 Dec) to kick off its Competition of Christmas (11 Dec), which can fill the city centre with greater than 100 stalls, fairground rides and avenue entertainers.

Illuminating in additional methods than one, Tate Liverpool is displaying this 12 months’s Turner prize contenders (till March 2023), and there are fascinating presents in its vibrant store. There’s additionally a free mild path circling the colonnades of the Royal Albert Dock, passing an enormous yellow submarine and glowing jellyfish, with bars and cafes promoting all the pieces from contemporary croissants to blissful hour cocktails.

Oh no, it isn’t!

Excellence in panto is recognised on the Pantomime Awards, and Morgan Brind, who gained finest dame final 12 months, is again at Derby Area, this time as Widow Twankey in Aladdin (9-31 Dec). Winner of finest costumes, Celia Perkins, is doing the designs once more at Oldham Coliseum, (till 7 Jan), the place it’s Robin Hood this 12 months, and Jonny Bowles is directing Cinderella on the Belfast Grand Opera Home, the place he scooped the choreography prize with final 12 months’s Goldilocks (3 Dec-15 Jan).

The Lyric Hammersmith levels the good pantos in London and this 12 months it is going to be Jack and the Beanstalk, full with skateboarding, OTT outfits and Beyoncé numbers (till 7 Jan). There’s a brand new digital set, utilizing LED screens for the primary time alongside conventional components, on the Swansea Grand for Magnificence and the Beast, starring Strictly glitterball-winner Joe McFadden (14 Dec-15 Jan).

Seasonal bars and cinemas

Manchester, the place the UK’s first Christmas market opened on the finish of the final century, has some unbeatable venues. The town’s Piccadilly Gardens turns into Winter Gardens, and this 12 months sees an enormous new heated double-tipi bar with a hearth pit. Close by meals stalls embrace plant-based Panc, whose vibrant vegan bratwurst was given prime marks final 12 months within the Manchester Night Information. Escape to Freight Island, a bar and restaurant advanced in an outdated depot close to Piccadilly station, reinvents itself for the season as Winter Island with music and a rooftop ice rink (till 24 Dec). An deserted Edwardian railway station above the positioning has turn into a brand new Yard Cinema, opened in October, with big beanbags for watching Dwelling Alone, Love Truly and different festive movies. The cinema itself is dressed movie-set-style, so guests arrive by way of tree tunnels into an overgrown palace (till 2 Jan).

The unique Yard Cinema in Wandsworth, south London, has an Arctic voyage theme this winter.

One other venue within the cinema-as-experience pattern, the Scotsman Picturehouse in Edinburgh, opened below the Scotsman lodge in 2019, has pink leather-based armchairs, retro lamps and free popcorn. Expensive-but-fun festive packages imply prospects can sip prosecco whereas watching It’s a Fantastic Life.

For even fancier choices, Blythswood Sq. in Glasgow is providing Baubles and Brunch: screenings of Elf and Dwelling Alone might be adopted by two programs together with steak and chocolate sundae.

The Luna Winter Cinema competition at Saint George’s Corridor in Liverpool has an enormous display below the columns and barrel-vaulted ceiling (10-23 Dec). And Liverpool cathedral is considered one of 11 venues for the Snowman Tour, the place a stay orchestra accompanies a screening of The Snowman and Aardman’s The Flight Earlier than Christmas for a feelgood festive present (varied dates).

Take to the ice

The ornate domes and minarets of Brighton’s Royal Pavillion glow blue and purple whereas skaters circle the ice beside them on a seasonal rink powered completely by renewable wind and photo voltaic vitality (till 8 Jan).

Scotland’s largest seasonal rink is exterior the fabulous Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow with lights, music, a separate toddler rink and adults-only classes after 9pm. There’s additionally a brand new 15-metre-high ferris wheel for a fowl’s-eye view of the whirling skaters under (till 24 Dec). A brief stroll away, within the vaulted cloisters of Glasgow College, there’s a free carol live performance on 13 Dec.

Cardiff’s free-to-enter Winter Wonderland has a skating rink, town’s solely ice bar (tickets embrace iced shot and rented heat coat), and an ice stroll by way of the fort, stretching 150 metres previous the Norman maintain (till Jan 8). The bar is saved at -10C, so it and the frozen seats don’t soften. Even the air-hockey desk is product of ice and there are ice sculptures, this 12 months on an undersea theme. Cardiff additionally has a lightweight path in Bute Park (till 1 Jan) and a Santa’s grotto within the altering rooms on the rugby stadium (Dec 2–24).

Santa’s grotto with a twist

1000’s of Father Christmases might be donning their pink coats and white beards this winter, in retailers, theme parks, zoos and castles. One imaginative thought is a reverse grotto on the Nationwide Belief’s Erddig Corridor in Wrexham. You deliver a donation for the native meals financial institution, chat with Santa, see the 18th-century manor halls decked for Christmas, and comply with a Rudolph-themed path across the grounds. The Erddig property’s 1,200 acres have waymarked woodland walks to the fort mound and a cathedral-style avenue of tall beeches and hornbeams. Home windows on one facet of the home turn into an enormous introduction calendar and the restaurant is open for cake and sizzling chocolate (weekends solely, 3-18 Dec).

There’s one other reverse grotto at Chirk Fort, a medieval fortress close to the Welsh-English border (varied dates). Winter walks within the space embrace the fort’s oak woods, Chirk aqueduct and the Llangollen canal towpath.

A reindeer path by way of the grounds of Biddulph Grange in Staffordshire results in Father Christmas in his cottage. Biddulph Gardens, a maze of areas with topiary pyramids, a sphinx-flanked summerhouse, Chinese language pagoda and Himalayan glen, are nice for teenagers in any season, with bridges, tunnels and terraces to discover (varied dates).

Belfast’s Titanic Expertise has a Christmas bundle involving a visit to see Father Christmas through a wishing tree in an enchanted forest, a workshop for handmade presents and a submit workplace for Christmas letters (till 23 Dec). The Historic Dockyard at Chatham, Kent closes as traditional for December, however – for the primary time this 12 months – is working Mission Christmas, with a go to to Santa together with a submarine journey (till 24 Dec).

Deck the halls

Lengthy Dwell the Christmas Tree! is the title of this 12 months’s arty winter competition at Harewood Home in West Yorkshire. Ten artists and makers have customary new variations of conventional timber from upcycled bottles, intricate paper mobiles, botanical sculptures utilizing leaves from the gardens, and a carnivalesque celebration referred to as One Love. There’s a pagan-style tree made with antlers within the Cinnamon Drawing Room, and a rotating, crystal-studded copper tree within the Music Room. Individuals arriving car-free get half-price entry, and there are common buses from Leeds and Harrogate. There may be additionally 150 acres of grounds to discover, with illuminated walks, overwintering geese and brilliant holly berries earlier than the drifts of lakeside snowdrops bloom once more (till 2 Jan)

At Nationwide Belief-owned The Argory, in County Armagh, the theme is Yesteryear, with the neoclassical home decked for a conventional festive season and open at weekends. The banisters are wreathed in greenery and baubles, and the grounds are residence to robins, gray squirrels and a Christmas truthful on 3-4 Dec.

Guests could make their very own pure Christmas wreath, embellished with berries and leaves from the property, at Downhill Demesne in County Derry. The workshop, with festive refreshments, takes place in thatched Hezlett Home, considered one of Northern Eire’s oldest home buildings (chosen dates).

Festive tram and practice rides

Illuminated heritage trams are working night excursions of Blackpool’s six miles of lights, that are shining for an prolonged season (till 2 Jan). Initially modelled within the Nineteen Sixties, the trams are formed like steam trains or open-topped boats.

TV inside designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen has given Blackpool’s Golden Mile an art-deco-style makeover this 12 months. The promenade between the resort’s two piers now has what Llewelyn-Bowen calls “dynamic corridors of scintillating colored mild”. This season’s show features a drag-themed digital present and a seven-metre-high walk-through seaside balls. Blackpool’s festive village, Christmas by the Sea, features a new free skating rink and synthetic snow (till 2 Jan).

There’s a grotto inside a embellished practice carriage on the harbour at Porthmadog, Snowdonia, the place the Ffestiniog railway’s Winter Wanderer service units off into the frosty hills. There are sizzling drinks and mince pies on sale on the station cafe to take pleasure in with the surroundings (varied dates).

A Prepare of Lights chugs alongside Dartmouth steam railway in Devon, by way of the 450-metre Greenway tunnel to an enchanted forest. On the way in which again, the city’s glowing home windows and avenue lamps might be mirrored within the river Dart (till 30 Dec).

Sculpture trails

Channel 4 first screened Raymond Briggs’s The Snowman 40 years in the past and has proven it each Christmas since. Individually painted to symbolize the 12 days of Christmas, big sculptures primarily based on the Snowman type a free path round Hitchin in Hertfordshire (till 20 Jan).

There’s additionally a craft truthful in Hitchin’s Faculties Museum (3-4 Dec) and native cafes to heat up in embrace Molly’s Tea Room, with its bay window stuffed with teapots and teddy bears.

There’s one other path of snowmen at Winkworth Arboretum in Surrey. Camellias, mahonia, witch hazel and early snowdrops flower within the winter backyard and down the wooded slopes, and mist rises from the reed-fringed pond on chilly days. For the festive season, there are free conventional video games and a carousel. Afterwards, there are mince pies and marshmallow-topped sizzling chocolate within the cafe, with 25p off for individuals who deliver a reusable cup (path till 2 Jan).

Birmingham has a strolling path of 15 emperor penguin sculptures, an enormous Frankfurt Christmas market (till 23 Dec), plus a programme of ballets, live shows and pantomimes.