Best Christmas experiences in London: tours, cruises, lights & shows

London does Christmas well. The lights are beautiful, the windows are works of art, and the Christmas markets are full of lovely things. And then there are the Christmas experiences – as many of them as there are Christmas lights, it seems. You could go the DIY route, and it’s never not worthwhile, but sometimes, it’s nice to turn up and be entertained, rather than standing on Regent Street wondering whether the angels are better from here or from the other end. But how do you choose which ones to do? After a while, don’t they all start looking like “bus goes past lights”? Well, the Christmas experiences below all offer something genuinely different, whether that means seeing the lights from a vintage Routemaster, cycling through them, eating your way around them, following Charles Dickens through the City, cruising the Thames on Christmas Day or, rather unexpectedly, driving through the West End in a street-legal kart. And then there’s the one that is not actually a Christmas…