London in December: Weather, Events and the Best Tours
Written and checked by the Best London Tours editorial team. .
December has the shortest days of the year in London, 7 hours 52 minutes on the 15th with sunset at 15:51. The one fact that matters more than any other: on 25 December there is no Underground, no bus and no National Rail service anywhere in London. Plan Christmas Day on foot or not at all.
Quick pick: the best London tours in December
| # | Tour | Best for | Duration | From | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harry Potter Studio Tour | Hogwarts in the Snow, which runs to 17 January | 7-9 hours | £85 | 4.6 (10,822) |
| 2 | Thames Dinner Cruise | The lit river at its best | 3 hours | £95 | 4.3 (2,412) |
| 3 | The Shard | One ticket, daylight and night | 1 hour | £24 | 4.5 (9,727) |
| 4 | Madame Tussauds | School holidays, guaranteed indoors | 2.5 hours | £24 | 4.6 (23,025) |
| 5 | Tower of London | A morning visit, and not between the 24th and the 26th | 2-3 hours | £37 | 4.6 (31,489) |
| 6 | London Dungeon | A dark month for a dark attraction | 1.5-2 hours | £24 | 4.6 (4,666) |
| 7 | Afternoon Tea | The most seasonal thing on this list | 1.5 hours | £83 | 4.6 (82) |
| 8 | St Paul's Cathedral | The cathedral in its own season | 1.5-2 hours | £24 | 4.7 (10,847) |
| 9 | SEA LIFE London | Ninety indoor minutes with young children | 1.5-2 hours | £25 | 4.4 (3,678) |
| 10 | Natural History Museum Tour | A structured route on a wet afternoon | 2.5 hours | £65 | 4.9 (93) |
Prices, ratings and review counts verified against live GetYourGuide listings on 28 July 2026. Duration varies by the option you choose at checkout.
Is December a good time to visit London?
December is the most atmospheric month to visit London and the most logistically constrained. You get 7 hours 52 minutes of daylight, the full winter lighting programme and a genuinely festive city. You also get a complete transport shutdown on 25 December and a three-day closure at the Tower of London.
Nothing in this guide is as useful to know in advance as the 25 December shutdown. On Christmas Day there is no Underground service, no bus service and no National Rail service anywhere in London. Not a reduced service, none. Taxis and private hire operate at premium rates and the roads are quiet, but if your hotel is not walking distance from where you want to be, you are not getting there cheaply.
Set against that, December is when London is at its best-looking. Sunset at 15:51 means the lights are on for two thirds of your waking day, which sounds like a complaint and is actually the appeal. Regent Street, Covent Garden and the South Bank in the dark at 17:00 are the version of London that most people have in their heads.
The month divides into three. Up to about the 18th it is busy but functional and reasonably priced midweek. From the 19th to the 24th it is the busiest shopping period of the year. From the 25th to the 31st the city empties of Londoners and fills with visitors, the attractions run reduced hours, and it becomes a strange, quiet, expensive week that some people love.
London weather in December
December averages 9.2C highs and 4.3C lows with 66mm of rain across twelve wet days. Sunset is 15:51 on the 15th and daylight is 7 hours 52 minutes, the shortest of the year. The shortest day is 21 December at 7 hours 50 minutes, with sunset at 15:53.
| Measure | December | Annual context |
|---|---|---|
| Average high | 9.2C | Ranges from 7.7C in January to 22.6C in July |
| Average low | 4.3C | Ranges from 1.7C in January to 13.9C in July |
| Rainfall | 66mm | Driest is April at 40mm, wettest is October at 77mm |
| Wet days (1mm or more) | 12 days | Fewest in April at 10, most in March at 13 |
| Daylight, mid-month | 7h 52m | From 7h 52m in mid-December to 16h 36m in mid-June |
| Sunrise and sunset, 15th | 07:59 to 15:51 | From 15:51 in mid-December to 21:19 in mid-June |
| Change across the month | loses 17m | Clocks go back on 25 October 2026 and forward on 28 March 2027 |
Temperature, rainfall and wet days are the 2015 to 2024 means from ERA5 reanalysis for central London, 2015 to 2024, via the Open-Meteo historical archive. Daylight, sunrise and sunset are for the 15th, from timeanddate.com sunrise and sunset tables for London.
The daylight barely moves in December, which is the one merciful thing about it. London loses just 17 minutes across the whole month, compared with 1 hour 54 minutes in October. The floor is reached around the solstice on 21 December, and by the 31st sunset has already crept back to 16:00. Whatever date you come, expect a usable outdoor window of roughly 08:00 to 15:50.
The temperature is milder than the darkness implies. A 9.2C mean high and 4.3C mean low make December warmer on average than January or February, largely because the Atlantic has not yet given up its summer heat. Settled snow in central London in December is uncommon; persistent grey and 66mm of rain across twelve days is the realistic expectation.
The practical effect of the light is on view tickets. A slot at The Shard or the London Eye booked for 15:15 gives you daylight, sunset and the fully lit city inside a single visit, which is genuinely the best value either offers all year. The same booking at 11:00 gives you a grey view of a grey city.
Crowds, prices and what to book ahead
December has three distinct phases. To about the 18th, busy but manageable. The 19th to the 24th is the most crowded shopping week of the year in the West End. From the 25th the city empties of residents and the remaining crowd is concentrated into a handful of attractions on reduced hours.
Book everything for the last two weeks of December, and book it now rather than on arrival. Attraction slots between Boxing Day and New Year are the tightest of the year outside August, because a compressed visitor population is chasing a reduced number of open time slots. This is the one period in this guide where turning up without a booking will materially damage a trip.
The West End between the 19th and the 24th is worth avoiding unless shopping is the point. Oxford Street, Regent Street and Covent Garden run at genuine crush density on those days, and Oxford Circus station regularly goes to exit-only or non-stopping operation on the busiest afternoons. Bond Street, Green Park and Piccadilly Circus are easier alternatives.
Pricing is bimodal. Midweek hotel rates in the City and Canary Wharf collapse from about the 18th as business travel stops entirely, sometimes to the lowest levels of the year. West End and South Bank leisure rates do the opposite. Staying in the City over Christmas and travelling in is often the cheapest way to do a festive London trip.
The best tours in London in December
The December ten is built for 7 hours 52 minutes of daylight and a festive city. Indoor and dressed-for-Christmas products dominate, view tickets move up because a 15:15 slot buys you sunset, and the Tower of London stays in the list with its 24 to 26 December closure flagged.
1. Harry Potter Studio Tour
4.6 out of 5 from 10,822 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £85 • 7-9 hours
Holds first place from November. The sets are dressed for Hogwarts in the Snow through to 17 January, and a full indoor day is exactly the right shape for a month with under eight hours of daylight. December slots are the most contested of the year, so book before you travel.
Best for in December: Hogwarts in the Snow, which runs to 17 January
2. Thames Dinner Cruise
4.3 out of 5 from 2,412 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £95 • 3 hours
Ranked second, up from sixteenth on review volume. With sunset at 15:51, an evening dinner cruise runs entirely against a lit skyline: Tower Bridge, the Shard and the South Bank all illuminated. This is the month the product is genuinely at its best rather than merely available.
Best for in December: The lit river at its best
3. The Shard
4.5 out of 5 from 9,727 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £24 • 1 hour
A 15:15 slot on the 15th gives you a daylight view, the 15:51 sunset and the lit city, all inside one booking. No other month offers that at a civilised hour. The risk is cloud, so take a flexible ticket where the operator offers one.
Best for in December: One ticket, daylight and night
4. Madame Tussauds
4.6 out of 5 from 23,025 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £24 • 2.5 hours
Twenty-three thousand reviews and complete weather independence, in the school holidays. It holds its autumn position rather than moving: December does not improve it, but nothing about a 66mm, 7-hour-daylight month makes it worse either.
Best for in December: School holidays, guaranteed indoors
5. Tower of London
4.6 out of 5 from 31,489 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £37 • 2-3 hours
Kept in the ten with a warning attached rather than quietly dropped. The Tower is closed on 24, 25 and 26 December and is on winter hours for the rest of the month, so this is a morning booking in the first three weeks or nothing. It returns to summer hours on 1 March.
Best for in December: A morning visit, and not between the 24th and the 26th
6. London Dungeon
4.6 out of 5 from 4,666 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £24 • 1.5-2 hours
Indoors, ninety minutes to two hours, and on the South Bank within a short walk of SEA LIFE and the London Eye, which makes it easy to build a single festive afternoon around. Check the operator's hours over Christmas week, which are reduced.
Best for in December: A dark month for a dark attraction
7. Afternoon Tea
4.6 out of 5 from 82 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £83 • 1.5 hours
Ranked in from near the bottom on review count, purely on seasonal fit. Afternoon tea is a winter-weighted experience anywhere, and in a month where the sun sets at 15:51 a warm ninety minutes indoors at 16:00 is precisely what the day needs.
Best for in December: The most seasonal thing on this list
8. St Paul's Cathedral
4.7 out of 5 from 10,847 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £24 • 1.5-2 hours
Moved up for December. St Paul's is a working cathedral and Advent is its busiest liturgical season, so sightseeing hours are more restricted than usual around services. Check the day before you go, but the building at this time of year justifies the effort.
Best for in December: The cathedral in its own season
9. SEA LIFE London
4.4 out of 5 from 3,678 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £25 • 1.5-2 hours
Stays in for the same reason as November: at 9.2C and dark before four, the ability to do something complete inside ninety minutes matters more than it does in summer. The South Bank location makes it easy to pair with the Dungeon or the Eye.
Best for in December: Ninety indoor minutes with young children
10. Natural History Museum Tour
4.9 out of 5 from 93 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £65 • 2.5 hours
Rated 4.9 from a small base. The museum is free to enter in every month, so the ticket buys guiding rather than access, and December is the month when a guided route through a busy building is worth more than wandering it alone.
Best for in December: A structured route on a wet afternoon
The London Eye drops out of the December ten despite being the most-reviewed product on the site, and it is worth being explicit about why. A 30-minute rotation is the one thing on this list that is entirely dependent on visibility, and December is the greyest month of the year. It also closes for the whole of January for annual maintenance, so a late-December ride is your last chance until February. Every outdoor walking and cycling product stays out, and Buckingham Palace remains closed for the season.
Events and festivals in December 2026
The most important December date in London is 25 December, when there is no Underground, no bus and no National Rail service anywhere in the city. Boxing Day falls on a Saturday, so the substitute bank holiday runs on Monday 28 December.
| Event | Dates | Where | Free? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Christmas Eve | Thursday 24 December | Citywide, early closing widespread | Not a bank holiday |
| Christmas Day, full transport shutdown | Friday 25 December | No Tube, no bus, no National Rail anywhere in London | Bank holiday |
| Boxing Day | Saturday 26 December | Reduced transport, sales begin | Bank holiday |
| Substitute bank holiday for Boxing Day | Monday 28 December | England and Wales | Bank holiday |
| New Year's Eve | Thursday 31 December | Riverside fireworks, ticketed and sold in advance | Ticketed |
| Somerset House ice rink | Runs to 10 January | Somerset House, Strand | Ticketed sessions |
| Hogwarts in the Snow | Runs to 17 January | Warner Bros Studio Tour, Leavesden | Ticketed |
The Christmas Day transport shutdown is total and it surprises visitors every year. There is no Underground service, no bus service and no National Rail service anywhere in London on 25 December. The Elizabeth line, the Overground and the DLR do not run either. Heathrow and Gatwick operate, but getting to or from them means a taxi or a pre-booked transfer at holiday pricing. If you are arriving or departing on the 25th, arrange the transfer before you travel.
Boxing Day falls on a Saturday in 2026. Under the standard rule the substitute bank holiday moves to Monday 28 December, so England and Wales get bank holidays on Friday 25, Saturday 26 and Monday 28 December. Transport runs a reduced Sunday-style service on the 26th and 27th, and engineering work is common on the lines over the whole period.
The New Year's Eve riverside fireworks are ticketed and sell out well in advance, and the viewing areas along the Embankment are fenced and controlled on the night. We are not publishing prices or on-sale dates here because those change annually and were not confirmed at the time of writing. Check the official Mayor of London listing rather than a resale site.
What is closed in December
December carries the heaviest closure load of the year. There is no public transport at all on 25 December. The Tower of London is closed on 24, 25 and 26 December. Buckingham Palace remains closed for the season, and almost every paid attraction closes on Christmas Day.
| Site or service | Closed | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| All London public transport | Friday 25 December | No Underground, no bus, no National Rail, no Overground, no DLR, no Elizabeth line. A complete shutdown, not a reduced service. |
| Tower of London | 24, 25 and 26 December | Three consecutive days. The Tower is also on winter hours all month and returns to summer hours on 1 March. |
| Buckingham Palace State Rooms | All month | Closed since 27 September. Only selected-date guided tours run through the winter. |
| Most paid attractions | 25 December | Assume everything is shut on Christmas Day unless the operator states otherwise, and expect reduced hours on 24 and 26 December. |
| Changing the Guard | Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays | Monday, Wednesday and Friday only, and most likely of any month to be cancelled for weather. |
| National museums | 24 to 26 December, typically | The free national museums generally close for the Christmas period. Check individual sites, as reopening dates vary between 27 and 28 December. |
Buckingham Palace opening season: Royal Collection Trust, visiting Buckingham Palace. Changing the Guard days are published a month at a time on the Household Division Changing the Guard listing, and the ceremony can be cancelled at short notice in bad weather.
The 25 December shutdown deserves to be planned for rather than discovered. Christmas Day in London works well if your accommodation is central and you intend to walk: the parks are open, the streets are quiet and empty in a way they never otherwise are, and it is a genuinely memorable day to be in the city on foot. It works very badly if you are in zone 3 with a booking in zone 1.
The Tower of London closing on 24, 25 and 26 December is the longest single closure of any attraction in our list, and it lands in the week many people take their Christmas break. Combined with the winter hours in force since November, the Tower is best done in the first three weeks of December or left until March, when it returns to its longer summer schedule on the 1st.
One December fact worth carrying into the next month: the London Eye closes for the whole of January for annual maintenance. If a ride on the wheel is on your list and your trip spans the new year, do it in December. There is no January workaround, and it does not reopen until February.
What to wear and pack for London in December
Pack for 9.2C days, 4.3C nights and a lot of walking in the dark. December is milder than January on the ten-year mean but it feels colder because the daylight window is only 7 hours 52 minutes, and much of your time outdoors will be after sunset at 15:51.
Layers matter more in December than raw insulation, because you will be moving repeatedly between 4C streets and heavily heated interiors: shops, pubs, the Underground and the attractions themselves. A heavy single coat with nothing underneath it is worse than a mid-weight coat over two thin layers you can strip.
If you are here for Christmas Day itself, pack for a walking day. With no public transport at all on 25 December, the realistic itinerary is on foot, which at 4.3C to 9.2C means proper shoes, gloves and something waterproof rather than a fashion coat and a plan to hop on a bus.
- Layers rather than one heavy coat, for constant indoor and outdoor swaps
- Gloves and a hat for the two thirds of the day that fall after sunset
- Waterproof shoes, twelve wet days and 66mm of rain
- Walking-ready clothing for 25 December, when nothing runs
- Pre-booked attraction slots for every day after the 26th
How we chose these tours
December ranks on darkness and dressing. Hogwarts in the Snow keeps the Studio Tour first. The dinner cruise and The Shard move up because a 15:51 sunset makes the lit city available in the middle of the afternoon. Afternoon tea enters the ten on pure seasonal fit. The Tower stays in with its 24, 25 and 26 December closure named.
- Popularity first. The base order is the verified review count on the live GetYourGuide listing, which is the only booking signal we can check independently.
- Then seasonal fit. A tour moves up or down for a specific, stated reason tied to December: temperature, wet days, sunset time, school holidays or a closure. Every move is explained in the entry itself rather than left implied.
- Closed means out. If an attraction is shut for the month, it does not appear in the ten at any rank, however popular it is. We name it in the closures table instead so you can plan around it.
- Nothing is invented. Prices, star ratings and review counts come from the live product page, checked on 28 July 2026. We do not publish an opening time, closure or event date we could not confirm, and we say so where we could not.
- We earn a commission. Booking links go to GetYourGuide and pay us if you book. That does not change the ranking: the review counts are public and you can check every one of them against the listing.
FAQs about London in December
Does the Tube run on Christmas Day in London?
No. There is no Underground service, no bus service and no National Rail service anywhere in London on 25 December, and the Overground, DLR and Elizabeth line do not run either. It is a complete shutdown rather than a reduced timetable. Taxis and private hire operate at holiday rates, and roads are unusually clear, but plan Christmas Day on foot if you can.
Is the Tower of London open at Christmas?
No, it is closed on 24, 25 and 26 December, three consecutive days. The Tower is also on winter opening hours from November through February and does not return to its longer summer schedule until 1 March, so a December visit should be a morning one. It is the longest closure of any attraction in our London list.
How short are the days in London in December?
7 hours 52 minutes on 15 December, with sunrise at 07:59 and sunset at 15:51. The shortest day is 21 December at 7 hours 50 minutes. The daylight barely changes across the month, losing only 17 minutes in total, and by 31 December sunset has already moved back to 16:00. Plan your outdoor sightseeing for roughly 08:00 to 15:45.
When are the December bank holidays in London in 2026?
Christmas Day falls on Friday 25 December and Boxing Day on Saturday 26 December. Because Boxing Day is a Saturday, the substitute bank holiday moves to Monday 28 December, giving England and Wales three bank holidays across that period. Transport runs a reduced Sunday-style service on 26 and 27 December, and engineering closures are common across the whole week.
Is it worth going up The Shard or the London Eye in December?
The Shard, yes, if you book around 15:15: sunset is at 15:51 on the 15th, so one ticket covers daylight, sunset and the lit city. The risk in both cases is cloud, and December is the greyest month of the year, so take a flexible or open-dated ticket where you can. Note that the London Eye closes for the whole of January for maintenance, so December is your last chance until February.
Does it snow in London at Christmas?
Very rarely, and settled snow on Christmas Day is unusual. The ten-year mean for December is a 9.2C high and a 4.3C low, which is above freezing and actually milder than January or February. The realistic December weather is grey and damp, with 66mm of rain across twelve wet days, rather than the snow-covered city on the cards.