When do Christmas decorations go up and holiday festivities begin in London and Paris? Would the first week of December be too early?

Paris is not heavily decorated for Christmas. Stores put up small amounts of decorations in some cases; the major department stores set up animated scenes for children in their store windows. The trees of the Champs-Élysées are decorated with lights. A few streets have modest decorations paid for by local merchants. There's a Christmas tree out in front of Notre-Dame. That's about it.

When we were in Paris the last week of November 2001 the decorations were already up in the big department stores, on the Champs-Elysées, at the Place Vendôme--and quite a few restaurants and food shops had decorated windows and lights. It was wonderful.

See http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34839023 for last year's London decoration timetable.

If by "festivities" you mean Christmas-themed concerts, yes they'll have started by early December. Pantomimes don't usually start till Boxing day, or sometimes a day or two before. Wall-to-wall office parties, making peaceful eating impossible in any moderately-priced restaurant, don't really get going till the middle of the month.

We were in London early in December a couple of years ago and there were decorations. The trees in Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden were up. Also a nicely decorated tree at the Somerset House, where music played for the ice skaters. Harrad's was lavishly decorated and the toy department was jaw dropping.

Our hotel had two beautifully decorated trees in the lobby, and lots of Christmas parties were held there.

The decorations in general were much more subtle than in the US, but we very much enjoyed seeing them.

Actually the majority of pantos have a run of around a month, and start well before Christmas. Hackney empire's starts on 1st December, New Wimbledon theatre's starts on 7th December.
Here's a list of pantos and Christmas shows all round the UK http://www.thisistheatre.com/panto.html
and here's a bunch of London Christmas museum events: http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/londo...id=iHkF7eSVvjm

Many thanks to each of you!

I seem to remember Christmas lights around the ice rink at Hotel de Ville..I remember in late November, the decorations going up in and on Galleries Lafayette. The windows and restaurants along Blvd St Germain were decorated...nothing is as overdone as most of our stores here in the US but it is nice and cheerful..

The lights along London's Regent Streets are lovely, and the huge Christmas tree on Trafalgar Square is very impressive. We were surprised at the number of small shops and restaurants with decorations.

We arrived on Thanksgiving day last year in Paris. The ice rink in front of Hotel DeVille was either up and opening or opened by Dec. 1. Same for the decorations on the front of the big department stores.

If you really want to see beautiful lights, check out Beaune, France, but they aren't until approximately December 6, 7 0r 8.