A fun fair, a stage for dancing, food stalls and other attractions will fill the High Street, which will be closed to traffic from 8am to 7pm.

A team of drummers who performed at the Olympic Games will head the procession, which starts from St Albans Road at 12 noon and will travel along the High Street to open the day’s proceedings.

The Mayor and Mayoress of Barnet, Councillors Melvin Cohen and Bridget Perry, will be accompanied by the Barnet Festival Queen, Candy Fern, and the Festival Princess, Sophia Theocharous, who will be following in vintage cars.  Local school-children, Star Wars characters and various costumed performers will add a splash of colour.

All told there are likely to be 100 stalls along the High Street and in and around the Spires shopping centre.

Among the day’s highlights will be Christmas music at the parish church of St John the Baptist; a craft fair in Church House; stalls in aid of the Noah’s Ark Hospice at the Wesley Hall; stalls and a reindeer on the newly resurfaced site of the market; and all-day entertainment for children in the Bull Theatre.

Festivities along the High Street will commence with a peal of bells to welcome the Mayor and Mayoress and then at 3p.m. a visiting team of eight bell ringers will attempt a full peal of Yorkshire Surprise Major, which takes three hours to complete.

Other attractions include Mannings fun-fair at the northern end of the High Street; a full programme of events on the dance stage in the High Street; and a chance to meet team players from Barnet Football Club at the end of Moxon Street from 1.30 p.m.

Festivities along the High Street will commence with a peal of bells to welcome the Mayor and Mayoress

Local traders have ensured that there will again be a Christmas tree and lights outside the parish church after the disappointment last year when the town lost out and failed to get funding from the Mayor of London’s Outer London Fund.

A fourteen-foot Nordic spruce complete with strings of 960 lights has been ordered for delivery in good time for the fair after a last-minute collection organised by members of the Christmas Fair Committee.

Please visit the Barnet Society’s Christmas Fair stall in the High Street.  On sale for the first time will be copies of the new Part 2 of Rambles Round Barnet, the Society’s booklet on local walks. Part 1, published in December 2012, has nearly sold out.

Committee officers and supporters will be manning the stall and will be only too happy to answer questions about the Society’s work, and maybe even sign up new members!