The Manchester Christmas Markets have landed for another year, with wooden huts popping up all over the city centre – including an expansive offering at Piccadilly Gardens.
For the third year, the main hub of the Christmas Markets has had to shift away from its traditional home outside the Town Hall on Albert Square.
Instead, the festivities are centred around Piccadilly Gardens once again, which has undergone a big makeover for the occasion to become the Winter Gardens.
Last year, large wooden platforms were built across the central square, hosting a range of food and drink traders.
The temporary structure was never actually taken down from last year (will we ever see the fountains again?) but has been extended and improved for 2022’s Christmas Markets.
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Winter Gardens now splits into several zones, so it can simultaneously be a Nordic-style rustic tipi, a traditional German market, a Japanese apres-ski hub and a scrapyard-style street food hub.
For the first time, huge tipis have been erected, giving the much-maligned Piccadilly Gardens an air of Scandi festivities.
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You’ll find roaring fires, hot tipples and evening entertainment.
The iconic wooden windmill bar is in place here too, decorated as always with giant wooden dolls.
Then the two wooden platforms have been turned into sheltered food and drink hubs, lined with street food stalls and bars.
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The apres-ski area at Winter Gardens, the Christmas Markets hub at Piccadilly Gardens. Credit: The Manc Group
One half is Dock 53, where rusted shipping containers have been stacked up as a huge bar and a live music stage dominates one side.
Cosy seating areas have been built out of wooden pallets, decorated with pine branches and giant baubles.
One corner has been turned into a modern apres-ski inspired area, complete with coloured lights, piste maps, and even actual skis piled up by the door.
When it comes to the food and drink, Piccadilly Gardens is the main hub this year, and has welcomed in some Christmas Markets firsts.
Local favourites Parmageddon and Oi Dumplings have both taken up pitches for the first time, while hit trader Panc Foods is back for a second year with its plant-based bratwursts and burgers.
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There’s also a huge Manchester Winter Ale House selling cask ales from local breweries like JW Lees, alongside hot drinks like boozy Vimto (made with gin or rum).
Featured image: The Manc Group
Christmas
Chester Zoo reveals new plans for ‘spectacular’ winter light trail
Emily Sergeant
Chester Zoo has revealed new plans for a “spectacular” lights trail this winter, and it sounds even more magical than ever.
Is it too early to mention the ‘C’ word? Probably, considering it is the middle of July… but despite how far in advance it may seem, Chester Zoo has wasted absolutely no time at all in revealing exciting plans for the return of its massively-popular lights trail this winter.
Lanterns and Light is by far one of the UK’s largest charity zoo’s best-loved events each year, so it’s absolutely no surprise to hear it’s making a 2024 comeback.
Set to feature a raft of new additions, and therefore more animal lantern puppets than ever before, the zoo is promising that this year’s Lanterns and Light will be even longer and “more exciting” than what visitors saw in back in 2023 – with the event running all the way through to New Year’s Day for the first time in its history.
The zoo will be teaming up with entertainment giants, Sony Music, once again to deliver this year’s beloved festive spectacle.
Chester Zoo has revealed new plans for the return of its ‘spectacular’ winter light trail / Credit: Chester Zoo
Opening to the public for some festive family-friendly fun from 15 November, organisers say visitors should expect to take a journey through a number of distinct and vibrant lands, where they’ll encounter an exciting lineup of costumed characters and new animal puppets – including meerkats, peacocks, red pandas, and snow leopards.
An “incredible” new soundscape will add to the immersive experience, while animal lanterns such as dragonflies hovering over water, elephants in permafrost, and exotic birds flying overhead, decorate the route of the stunning light trail.
If the lights and sculptures themselves weren’t impressive enough as it is, there’ll also be a whole new festive menu on offer at food and drink markets stationed in various locations within the zoo too.
🎄Christmas is JUST around the corner!❄️
More LIGHTS, more LANTERNS, more ANIMAL PUPPETS, more MAGIC, more of EVERYTHING you love…
Don’t forget to greet Father Christmas in his workshop!🎅 Tickets to Lanterns & Light are selling fast, so get them while you still can👇 pic.twitter.com/B8cmwrLr76
Heidi Budden, who is the Marketing Manager at Chester Zoo, expects this year’s Lanterns and Light to be a “wonderful evening” and says it gives visitors the chance to “play a part in helping wildlife to thrive”.
“We’ve made the light trail even longer and packed it with exciting new elements,” she added.
“There’ll be more animal lanterns than ever before, and never-before-seen interactive puppets including energetic meerkats, colourful peacocks and playful snow leopards, all joined by many of the family favourites from years gone by that people have grown to love.”
There’ll be more animal lantern puppets than ever before at this year’s festive spectacle / Credit: Chester Zoo
Lanterns and Light will return to Chester Zoo from Friday 15 November 2024, and run on selected evenings right through to New Year’s Day – with tickets now on sale.
Ticket sales will help to support the zoo in its conservation efforts to protect some of the planet’s most threatened species.
The lyrics to Auld Lang Syne for New Year’s Eve, and what the song means
Daisy Jackson
The clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, the confetti is thrown, the kisses are exchanged, and then up starts Auld Lang Syne and you realise, once again, that you don’t know the lyrics to the iconic song.
This classic song is traditionally sung as we welcome in a new year, but you may (like us) find yourself singing the words as ‘dah daaah dah dah daaah dah dah, dah dah daaah dah Auld Lang Syne.”
Well it’s time to stop that behaviour and learn yourselves the Auld Lang Syne lyrics, quick time, before we hit 2024.
The text of the song is actually from a Robert Burns poem, penned way back in 1788 and based on an old Scottish folk song.
It was set to a tune a decade later, and since then has been recorded by dozens of different artists.
Auld Lang Syne can loosely translate as ‘old long since’, or ‘days gone by’ or ‘old times’.
So its meaning roughly is ‘for the sale of old times’.
There are longer versions of the song, but the lyrics to the most commonly-played version of Auld Lang Syne are below.
So hold hands with your loved ones, crack open the champers, and ring in a very happy new year.
What are the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne?
Fireworks on New Year’s Eve, when the song Auld Lang Syne is traditionally sung
Should auld acquaintance be forgot And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot And the days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear For auld lang syne We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet For the sake of auld lang syne
And surely you will buy your cup And surely I’ll buy mine! We’ll take a cup of kindness yet For the sake of auld lang syne
We two have paddled in the stream From morning sun till night The seas between us Lord and swell Since the days of auld lang syne
For old acquaintance be forgot And never brought to mind Should old acquaintance be forgot For the sake of auld lang syne?
For old acquaintance be forgot And never brought to mind Should old acquaintance be forgot In the days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear For auld lang syne We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet For the sake of auld lang syne