Cold rush: Christmas Day dippers take the plunge
Swimming on Christmas Day in Europe, often in freezing temperatures, has become a tradition — one that makes a lot of headlines over the festive season.
On your marks
Swimmers prepare for the annual tradition, a swimming race known as the Peter Pan Christmas Day Race in the Serpentine, in London’s Hyde Park, that’s been held every year at Christmas since 1864. Only members of the Serpentine Swimming Club, one of the oldest such clubs in the country, who’ve been competing winter and summer, may take part. Spectators are invited but are advised to dress warmly.
Swim club members only
The race was given its name in 1904 by Scottish novelist and playwright Sir James Matthew Barrie who created the character of Peter Pan. Winners used to be presented with medals but that year Barrie gave out a “Peter Pan cup” for the first time. That coincided with the debut of the play “Peter Pan” in London.
Every Christmas since 1864
"The Serpentine Christmas Day race for the Peter Pan Cup is probably the oldest continuously swam race in the world," the swimming club boasts on its website. It's been raced every year since 1864 except for 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic meant it could not be held.
Costumed bathers
Believe it or not, some of the swimmers even get into the water beforehand to "warm up" for the race. Others wear fancy dress or costume hats, something they may well have needed for warmth given heavy wind and low temperatures around 4 degrees Celsius in London this Christmas Day.
Like a seal to water
Swimming on Christmas Day is not a tradition reserved for hardy Britons. In Germany members of the Berliner Seehunde (or Berlin Seals) swimming club plunged into Oranke Lake in the Berlin suburb of Spandau. In Berlin, the water was likely warmer than the air. On Christmas Day the German capital saw temperatures of minus 5 degrees Celsius.
Four freezing decades
The Berliner Seehunde also have a tradition of winter dips even if it isn’t quite as old as that of the Serpentine Swimming Club. Since 1980 members of the club have been meeting regularly, every Sunday over winter, to swim in the freezing waters.