UCL’s saddest Christmas decorations

The UCL campus may be too small for the number of students the Uni insists on cramming in (the Royal National Hotel is still not a lecture theater guys), but we do have some fairly attractive architecture going on. Which begs the question why are all the Christmas decorations depressing enough to make even the most Christmas-obsessed student want to cancel the holiday?

Not only are they half-hearted at best, but most of them are only going up this week – over ten days into December and five or less until the end of term.

We've gathered up the worst of the lot for you to peruse when you're just feeling too happy and festive and want to bring it down a notch.

But then, maybe we should just be grateful that it's poor decorating and not racially insensitive Christmas messages this year…

Print Room

If you look in the bottom right, you can see the wreath that tried to escape being included in this lacklustre display.

The decorations inside are actually pretty decent, which just make the tinsel and parcel tape on the door even more sad.

SELCS in Foster Court

The lights don't even wrap around the tree.

Someone's obviously gone to some effort to put this tree here, but it's such a big space and the tree looks like it's given up the will to live… Maybe if it had some tinsel and baubles?

Science Library Returns

At least this tree's actually decorated.

Okay, so this snapshot actually looks quite cute, but the science library's a big place and this is the peak of its festivity. Are we only allowed to feel Christmassy if we're returning books?

Science Library Cafe

What's even the point?

Window displays are hard – the amount department stores pay for theirs is proof enough of that. The actual counter of the cafe is pretty Christmassy, but they overreached themselves trying to cheer up Malet Place with a single tinsel cone.

The Refectory

The copper lampshades are more Christmassy than the decorations.

Yep, those three parcels and a tinsel tree are pretty much the extent of the decorations in the Refectory. You know, that basement room in Wilkins. The huge one.

Roberts Building Cafe

At least they're neatly wrapped I guess…

Another huge room, another disproportionate collection of decorations. But at least in the Refectory they're actually visible, these ones are just piled in the corner behind the counter.

Main Quad

The lights don't even reach the top. Or, you know, cover the rest of the tree properly.

A great tree, poor decorating effort. Also, it was put up on Monday 10th – but then maybe we should be grateful we haven't had to look at it for any longer…

Jeremy Bentham

Nothing?!

Okay, okay, I know Bentham's whole thing was the separation of religion and state, and he was the "spiritual founder" of the UK's first secular university and everything. But would it be so wrong to give him a santa hat and a tinsel scarf?

Have I missed any truly terrible ones? Drop a picture to our Instagram if you think I have and give us a follow while you're there – it is Christmas after all!