As London settles firmly and comfortably into its festive stride, the seasonal themes are falling hard and heavy this weekend, like the snow we'll never see. But in addition to the expected, if brilliant, drag panto and festive fairs, there's everything from faith healers and free cognac to a design grotto and smattering of song to keep you distracted.

This weekend's guide is brought to you by Potocki Wódka. Produced to this day by the old Polish aristocratic family of the same name, Potocki Wódka, pronounced 'Po-toh-tski Vood-ka', is a premium, double- distilled vodka made from rich Polish rye. With its creamy texture and warm palate of nuts and pepper, Potocki is great on its own, but also makes the most delightful winter martini.

Raymond Gubbay Christmas Festival
The classical aficionados at Raymond Gubbay are launching this year's Christmas Festival at the Barbican with soloist Brenda Edwards and a veritable barrage of festive gospel belters (Dec 22). Other noteworthy nights in the line-up include Julian Lloyd Webber and Elgar's cello concerto (Dec 26), the Royal Philharmonic giving it to Beethoven's 9th (Dec 30), and the Glen Miller Orchestra playing a stream of retro classics to ebb out the New Year's hangover (Jan 1).

Inspiration Information Christmas Boogie
Their Notting Hill Arts Club residency over, this decade-young institution still gets it spot on every time. Mixing up the finest off-centre grooves known to man, whether they be funk, jazz, soul, house, or disco, with the latest and greatest, often before they're even big, the I.I. chaps are taking their turn on the Christmas wagon. Expect the unexpected. And expect to love it.

Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain
What is it about the ukulele? Is it it's diminutive size? The vaguely George Formby banjo associations? Or is it the fact that a uke, costing comparative pocket change, can poke such fun at the musical sacrament? Running for over 20 years, the UOGB's tours sell out internationally, as they cover everyone from Talking Heads to Metallica, beside a wealth of their own (mis)creations.

Office Party Xmas 2007
Ah, the office Christmas party. Whilst your home affair might be about familial joy, culinary excess, and the pleasures of gift-giving and -receiving, how can its office counterpart still invoke such misguided ventures as arses on photocopiers, secretarial groping behind the filing cabinet, and the one poor fool who insists on telling his boss exactly what he thinks? Don your festive office finery for this interactive cabaret spectacle and prepare to cringe.

The Xmas Factor
Imagine a horrific car crash, in which all your favourite Disney characters have been savagely wounded. Stop smiling. They're whisked away by a mad professor who saves them, but accidentally rearranges their bits leaving an army of Frankensteinian fairy-tale monsters. Now, sans gore, that's a pretty fair description of Jonny Woo's fabulous drag panto. After opening with Charming leaving Snow White and hooking up with Aladdin, Disney just gets stranger.

Congo Faith Healers
Swamp-drenched, ol'-school blues, as dirty as they were always meant to be: harmonica, double bass, trumpet, drums, swelling into each other behind a flurry of Howlin' Wolf vocals, Django Reinhardt guitar, and some Tom Waits craziness. And as sandpaper for their splintered edges, the divinely talented Nicola Emmanuelle lends her jazz-rich voice to the Pigalle's sweltering proceedings.

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If you're quick, there are still tickets to see our favourite Brazilian export since cachaça, capoeira, acai, and bikinis. With more energy than the Duracell bunny on a drug-fuelled weekend in Ibiza, if you haven't yet caught this smart, fun electro-rock-pop collective live, then you really must. And if you have. Well then go and see them again. Or else.

Portico Quartet
Wrapping up a stunning twelve-month residency at this South London favourite, post-jazz genii, the Portico Quartet, are scheduled to take over the world next year, enslaving us all to their international, interstellar grooves. Signed to the Vortex/Babel imprint, and with their album Knee Deep in North Sea out last month, grasp this opportunity to see them for free whilst you still can.

Hackney Proms
Yes yes. But once you lay aside the initially flummoxing oxymoron of Hackney throwing a Prom, and overcome your discriminatory Eastest tendencies, these relaxed Sunday morning concerts are rather lovely. Now on their third year, the period performances by the Battuta ensemble are made all the more attractive by the coffee, croissant, mince pies and mulled wine on offer to ease away the last remnants of that damned weekend hangover.

Coeur de Cognac
Of course you could keep putting off the Christmas shopping until you really have no choice. But what would make it easier, besides an army of personal shoppers and someone else's credit card, than a few, free alcohol breathers? So, whilst you're whittling away your savings in the Wonder Room today, slip into Rémy Martin's loving embrace and "sample" their fruity, new Coeur de Cognac. Christmas shopping made easy. Simple.

Spitalfields Winter Festival
Battling against the monotony of the identikit Christmas concert, the Spitalfields Winter Festival embraces the cultural and artistic plurality and openness of East London with one of the season's more intelligent line-ups on offer. Collaborating with local communities and musical professionals alike, the performances on offer cross geographical and historical boundaries equally with everything from the tales of Sinbad (Fri Dec 14) and T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (Thurs Dec 20) to bell ringing (Fri Dec 14), Brahms (Wed Dec 19), and the delightful medieval ensemble, Joglaresa (Fri Dec 21). Whoever reduced East London to skinny jeans, foolish haircuts and nu-rave queens clearly missed this annual adventure.

Secret Cinema
Future Shorts have been around for just a wee while now, unleashing their brand of cinematic experimentation on the UK from all possible angles. Their new project, however, does a pleasing job of reinserting the mystery into it all. Combining the tactics of the incessant Secret Warehouse Party with cracking films, you only get to find out the location on the morning of the screening and only if you've signed up on their site. Guaranteed, the location will be somewhere odd and doubtlessly perfect, and the flick is set to be a piece of groundbreaking cinematic mastery. Which sure beats shelling out twenty quid on a mediocre movie and a small popcorn anywhere else.

Design Grotto
So there you are at the local WannabeMall, waiting patiently in line to sit on Santa's knee and tell him what you really want for Christmas, and what a good girl you've been, when suddenly some unruly security guard pulls you aside and informs you, with stern stare, that this grotto is for children only. Well screw him. Pop down to Somerset House instead and not only will there be tonnes of gift ideas from independent designers like Beyond the Valley's Christmas Fondle, Tatty Devine's Snowed In, and Mrs Kibble's Olde Sweet Shoppe, but they've even scheduled an adult-friendly Santa just for you (though not in a suspect stripper kind of way).

Mudchute Park & Farm
An escape from the urban pre-Christmas experience, why not try something a little more rural? Besides all the usual farm attractions and odours and the park's equestrian centre, there are plenty of activities to keep kids (at heart) happy, as well as the farm's own kitchen to provide a spot of on-site lunch and delicious, homemade mince pies for the masses.

Bankside Frost Fair 2007
As global warming does its bit to terrorise the seasons, there is little chance that we'll be skating the Thames anytime soon. But, exactly 400 years on since the first Frost Fair did just that, and five years since the theme was resurrected, albeit on the safety of dry land, the fair is getting back into its stride with festive stores, performances, shows, and plenty of food and wine to ward off the chill.