Where to spend Christmas: 5 magical hotels to make you feel festive

When you want to escape the craziness of the bright lights and frantic shoppers on London’s Oxford Street, retire to this charming, rather sedate corner of the city and the neo-Georgian Bloomsbury hotel. After a hard day’s gift-hunting, order a stiff drink in one of the many comfortable living rooms accompanied by roaring fires, William Morris wallpaper and Roger Fry portraits. For an extra dose of festive cheer, the hotel has its very own winter wonderland at the all-day restaurant and bar, Dalloway Terrace, which has been transformed with festive fir trees, hanging pinecones, sheepskin blankets and knitted hot-water bottles – we recommend a Belsazar vermouth and the signature truffle fondue.

With its endless blue skies and beachy lifestyle, Los Angeles doesn’t immediately put you in the typical holiday spirit. But drive through the canyons over the festive period and you’ll see why it’s fondly referred to as Tinseltown, with the kaleidoscopically lit mansions of Bel Air decorated to the nines. The centerpiece has to be Hotel Bel-Air: a pink stucco fantasyland festooned with fairy lights, including its gardens, jasmine-scented arbors and terraces. Executive pastry chef Tiffany Pascua leads gingerbread house decorating classes on the main lawn, with mulled wine, cheese platters and eggnog guaranteed. Don’t miss superstar chef Wolfgang Puck’s four-course Christmas dinner menu that stands out for the most refined roast turkey and yule log dessert.

What could be more romantic than a journey across the northernmost tip of Swedish Lapland in search of the northern lights? How about staying in perfect isolation at Loggers Lodge, a spacious one-bedroom cabin retreat for two? The owners (who also run travel specialist Pure Lapland) act as your own onsite astronomers; there is also an ‘aurora’ app to guarantee the best northern lights sightings, alongside excursions to hike the Storforsen rapids, or snowshoeing along the Arctic Circle. Dinner is an amazing spread of Swedish stews with red lentils and baked gluten-free bread, washed down with jugs of Lingonberry juice.

Les Fermes de Marie, the flagship of the Sibuet Hotels empire, exudes a very discreet, French elegance. While it’s a hotel for all seasons, it is never more magical than when the Christmas lights glitter in the fir trees of the hotel park and the fires are lit in the bedrooms beneath the creaking eaves of its nine former farm buildings. With its carless streets and horse-drawn calèches, this is textbook traditional holiday fare. It’s perfect if you’re taking along children and grandparents; the elders can sip whisky in the cozy cocoon of a bar and children let loose in Heidi-style play dens, while you feed each other raclette in at Restaurant Alpin or sink into an outdoor hot tub.