Edinburgh at Christmas

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George Street, Edinburgh

Christmas takes over Edinburgh in a big way. George Street, in the New Town, is particularly pretty and this year hosted Ice Adventure: a journey through frozen Scotland. See if you can guess what any of these ice sculptures are! (they’re all captioned, so click to view). I do have reservations about how festive Mary, Queen of Scots having her head chopped off is…..

Unicorn, Scotland’s national animal
Celtic Cross
Stags locking antlers
Bear
Skating Minister after Raeburn
Highland Cow with familiar face
Forth Bridge
Queensferry Crossing
Greyfriars Bobby and Duke of Wellington
Mary Queen of Scots
Piper
Bruce and his spider

We had tickets for the ice sculptures but were pleased to happen upon another event.

Joy to the World, the Edinburgh Christmas Tree Festival, takes place at St Andrew’s and St George’s West. Forty trees are each decorated by a local charity, business or voluntary group. All the trees come from social enterprise Caring Christmas Trees, supporting homeless people in Edinburgh throughout the winter, and donations to the event benefit another three charities. What a lovely idea!

A couple more Christmassy shots of George Street. Can you see the feet sticking out from that fairground attraction? It plummeted from the top VERY quickly. No way would I ever get on that!

George Street, Edinburgh
George Street, Edinburgh

All that remains is to wish you all a very Happy Christmas! I hope you have a lovely time however, or whatever, you are celebrating.

Scotland, UK ,

73 Comments »

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  4. I adore ice sculpture and you photo of The Highland Cow had me roaring. George Street must have put you in such a festive mood. Hard to get in the spirit surrounded by palm trees 🌴. Hope you had an awesome Christmas and that you’ve got something big on tonight to ring in the New Year 🎆

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  6. These are beautiful lights and love the ice sculptures even the strange Mary ready to lose her head which I actually like. I hope your Christmas was good and wishing you a Happy New Year

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  11. Today’s the day. Hope you’ve been enjoying it, as you obviously enjoyed the ice sculptures and festive lights in Edinburgh. Coincidentally, twice in the last two days we’ve heard people with marked Scottish accents on television. One was in the 1994 movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

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  12. Those ice sculptures are spectacular, Anabel. I think it would be an amazing thing to take one December and just go from city to city looking to see how people are celebrating Christmas. Edinburgh would absolutely be on my list.
    Happy Christmas to you and John.

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  13. Happy Holidays to you, Anabel. I enjoy following you around this year and I am looking forward to taking more trips with you (virtually) 😉
    Have a great day.

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  15. oh wow Anabel, what fun and a lovely approach to Christmas. Like Jo it was the stags that caught my eye, albeit there is something rather fabulous about that Highland Cow, I think it is because it has such a wonderful face 🙂

    I really love the Christmas Tree idea – wonderful.

    Wishing you a very Happy Christmas, and here’s to our 2018 meet up 🙂

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  16. The ice sculptures are fabulous, my favourite just has to be the bear. I’m interested to know what the writing underneath it said. My opinion of the fairground ride is the same as yours – for me, anything that goes more than 3ft off the ground is an absolute no-no! 😦

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  20. The markets get bigger every year, don’t they? A friend was in Edinburgh last week and she said there were 3 tiers of stalls on Princes St. 🙂 🙂 I like the smaller events too, and somewhere I can make a donation and do a bit of good. Those ice stags are fabulous! A very merry Christmas to you and yours, Anabel, and a healthy, happy New Year.

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    • Yes, and I’m sure there weren’t markets on George St and Castle St last year. I just read an article about how all the commercial stuff is overtaking historic Edinburgh and making it an expensive place to live. Folk I know who live there do complain. But I love Edinburgh at Christmas – it’s back to the old discussion about the merits and otherwise of tourism. Enough of that though, it’s Christmas – have a great one.

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    • They were very interesting and beautiful. The marquee they were in had a temperature of -10C which kept them frozen (and possibly also meant no visitors overstayed their welcome!)

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  24. Hi, Anabel – The lighted dome on St. George Street is absolutely stunning…as are the Ice Sculptures. I was able to guess some of the sculptures…but still had an embarrassingly low score. Wishing you a very happy and healthy holiday ahead!

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  25. Those ice sculptures are incredible. I have actually never seen any in person before. So beautiful. And, so are all the Glasgow lights. Thanks for sharing the festive season in your home town, Anabel and Merry Christmas to you and John. Cheers to more gallivanting for you both in 2018!

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    • Thank you, Liesbet, they were absolutely lovely. Happy Christmas to you and Mark too!

      PS The clue to the location was in the title, lol. An edit button would be handy for comments – I often press post then spot a mistake and cringe.

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  26. Well that’s different! Love the unicorn. Happy Christmas to you too Anabel (and HIM of course). It has been a pleasure travelling with the pair of you this year and I hope you have many more adventures planned in 2018.
    Jude xx

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  31. Merry Christmas. I was around there at much the same time but luckily have a different set of photos. Missed the info on ice sculptures and Christmas trees completely despite looking up the Christmas events programme online ( DOH!) so nice to see them here.

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    • The Christmas trees we found accidentally and I only knew about the ice sculptures as someone posted on FB that they’d been – so not sure how good the marketing was! Merry Christmas to you too and happy tramping in 2018.

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  32. Lovely photos Anabel. I think the Christmas Tree Festival is great, especially if it benefits charities. Like you, I’m not sure about the Mary Queen of Scots ice sculpture, but I do admire the skill and spectacle of the event.
    Wishing you and your family a very happy Christmas, and much fun and adventuring in 2018.

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  33. How absolutely gorgeous. Edinburgh planning to give Sapporo a run for its money next year? I didn’t know the unicorn was Scotland’s national animal. Are you having us on?

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