The ballerina-topped display that is officially the best Christmas tree in London for the 2025 festive season

It’s December, which means we can finally stop feeling embarrassed about whacking on The Holiday and cracking open a bottle of Baileys (even though we’ve actually been drinking it since October). Christmas lights have arrived, festive trees have been erected, and people are embarrassing themselves at office parties all over the city. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. 

Time Out has just crowned London’s very best Christmas tree for 2025. It’s... the spruce at St Pancras International train station. Titled ‘Powered by Dreams’, this year’s tree is made in collaboration with Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).

Sitting in the intersection between trad and inventive, this year’s St Pancras Christmas tree isn’t particularly whacky, but it’s not a total bore either. Inspired by a music box, the 2026 design features a 12-metre-high tree, adorned with 180 metres of fairy lights and a spiral of 158 glowing baubles, with an ornamental clockwork winder at the bottom. Just like a traditional music box, the tree gently turns to a soothing tune and is topped by a ballerina (based on a real dancer from the GOSH Charity-funded GOSH Arts programme, who visits children and their families on the hospital wards). 

Thirty-eight children from GOSH were invited to draw their ‘wishes for the future’ that were then printed on the baubles that decorate the tree. Their dreams include becoming an Olympic gymnast, training to be a pilot, or travelling into outer space. Visitors can peak through ‘dream windows’ to see children’s written notes are processed through a ‘dream machine’ and turned into baubles. Overall, it took 30 craftspeople and 1,800 hours to bring the tree to life. 

Visitors can take a rest at the seating area next to the base of the tree, where there are buttons that activate the music, braille text to represent patients with sensory loss and a donation box that’ll go towards GOSH. Heartwarming stuff.  

Read the full ranking of London’s loveliest Christmas tree displays. 

Plus: the best Christmas markets in London for 2025. 

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