For five weekends only, the historic Cow Palace in Daly City is transformed into the streets and stages of Charles Dickens’ Victorian London. On Saturdays and Sundays, and the Friday after Thanksgiving, from November 18 through December 17, The Great Dickens Christmas Fair & Victorian Holiday Party will take visitors on an immersive adventure through four acres of Victorian theaters, pubs, and dance halls, encountering hundreds of costumed characters along the way. Meet Father Christmas, Mad Sal and her jolly gals, Mr. Dickens, and his Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Lamplit shops filled with handmade gifts line the streets, and the enticing aromas of roasted cinnamon almonds and hearty foods fill the air. The Great Dickens Christmas Fair is a time traveler’s delight and a one-of-a-kind way to celebrate the holidays! Keep reading for a chance to win tickets!
Visitors will first step inside the Cow Palace South Hall, where they will be transported into the hustle and bustle of London’s Victoria Station. Conductors greet visitors over the sounds of whistles and the steam of imagined trains as they make their way through the station and down the hill into the Historic Exhibition Halls miraculously transformed into Victorian London. Once again, the nonprofit Delancey Street Foundation will sell fresh-cut Christmas trees for guests to take home and adorn.
This season, visitors can enrich their Victorian holiday with curated tours, dramatic encounters, and new mysteries to solve. Guests can book a complimentary guided tour, join a delicious Port and Chocolate Tasting, sit for High Tea, or embark on a new adventure - the Jekyll and Hyde Pub Crawl. Back by popular demand, the Sherlock Holmes Experience presents a perplexing new puzzle while young ones may enjoy the self-guided Children’s Tour of London and meeting Father Christmas each day at 1 and 4 p.m.
Guests can also catch a traditional English Pantomime, Irish singers, Bedouin belly dancers, clever comedies, and astounding juggling at one of seven stages offering entertainments. From the Upperside Victoria & Albert Bijou Music Hall and lively Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig’s Dance Party, where visitors can join in the fun, to the raucous, somewhat naughty entertainments of Mad Sal’s Dockside Ale House, there is always something for all tastes and ages.
Mr. Dickens himself and a hundred characters from his novels inhabit the Fair’s streets and stages. Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, Oliver Twist, and Nancy mingle with chimney sweeps, musicians, newsies, carolers, dancers, and saucy sailors throughout the lanes of London. Or take a seat inside the parlour of the famous Athenaeum Club, where visitors to London often include Suffragette Women and the likes of Oscar Wilde, Anne Lister, Karl and Eleanor Marx, and other notable characters from the literary, artistic, scientific, and business worlds.
The Great Dickens Christmas Fair overflows with holiday magic for the youngest guests, offering hands-on craft activities, old-world games of skill and chance, and lively interactive shows at the Tinsley Green Children’s Area and Father Christmas Stage. Youngsters can meet Father Christmas, ride on the hand-powered Adventure Carousel, lend a face to the tintamarresque of Alice in Wonderland’s Mad Hatters Tea Party, laugh at the antics of an authentic British Punch & Judy puppet show, and even catch a death-defying Sword-Swallowing act!
The Great Dickens Christmas Fair is a cornucopia of handcrafted, freshly made foods– there is ever so much to eat and drink! Guests can feast on traditional savories like fish ‘n chips, bangers and mash, meat pies, or sweets like homemade cookies, artesian chocolates, and teacakes. This year marks the debut of Jack and the Beansteak vegetarian foods and Slice of Heaven calzones and flatbreads. To accompany these and over a hundred other delectable foods, six traditional pubs offer craft beers from local Anderson Valley Brewing Company along with fine wines, champagne, hot buttered rum, Irish coffee, hot toddy, and mulled wine. Or sit for proper English high tea complete with scones and finger sandwiches.
With over 100 beautiful shops and carts, there is no shortage of thoughtful and unique shopping inspiration. Whether searching for the perfect holiday present for friends and loved ones – or a personal Christmas treat or two – guests will find the quaint shops and bustling emporiums filled with fine crafts, fanciful clothing and accessories, ceramics, elegant drinkware, stunning jewelry, toys, ornaments, and antiquarian books.
Upon entry to the Fair or at the Patterson and Sons Shop just inside the front gate, guests are invited to pick up a complimentary copy of the official Dickens Fair Program - The Illustrated London Chimes – an informative newspaper complete with show schedules, maps, menus, shopping ideas, and other helpful information.
TICKETS
Tickets range from $18 to $45. Early Bird pricing is available through Sunday, October. 15. The port tasting and pub crawl require reservations and additional tickets. Early purchase and date selection is recommended as attendance is limited each day. Tickets may only be purchased online and in advance at dickensfair.com/tickets.
Ticket Giveaway
It's easy to enter for a chance to win a family-four pack of tickets - just click HERE.
Official giveaway rules can be found here.
