Narrowboat Christmas 2025: Decorating Our Tiny UK Canal Boat & Festive Food

Perfect festive viewing in the run-up to Christmas, especially if you’re craving something cosy and calm. Join us aboard our narrowboat Serenissima as we celebrate Christmas on the UK canals! In this festive episode, we bring Christmas to our tiny floating home, from digging the decorations out of the lockers to hanging garlands, switching on the Twinkly lights, and enjoying our annual tradition of watching A Kylie Christmas with a glass of sherry (ice… or no ice!). As the winter darkness sets in, we make the boat cosy with Philips Hue candle-glow lighting, Venetian-coloured Twinkly LEDs, and our favourite decorations collected from years of travel, including a sparkly Venetian lion, a handmade tree, and our much-loved (and slightly tacky) Rialto Bridge bauble. Later, we dress up for a festive evening on board and cook a homemade Christmas cichetti feast: roast chicken, stuffing, smoked salmon, truffle ham, pigs in blankets and more, all enjoyed beside the fire on a freezing winter night. It’s Christmas, narrowboat style: simple, warm and full of little traditions. We also look back on our highlights of the year, from meeting canal legend Robbie Cumming, to slow travelling from the UK to Malta without flying, to discovering new favourite places like Cagliari and creating our summer rooftop garden. Whether you’re here for narrowboat life, tiny-home decorating, slow travel or simply a bit of Christmas cosiness, we’re really happy to have you with us. 🌍 About Us We’re Rick and Adam, digital nomads living aboard our narrowboat Serenissima and slow travelling across Europe and beyond. Subscribe to join us aboard and abroad every Friday. 👉 @thefloatingnomads ☕ Support the Channel If you’d like to support what we do, you can buy us a coffee (or a spritz) here. It’s our first time mentioning it, and Christmas felt like the perfect moment. Thank you so much if you choose to! 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/floatingnomads 💬 Say Hello We always enjoy hearing from you, so feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think. 🎵 All original music in this video was created by Adam. We also use licensed copyrighted music via Lickd, including “Christmas Isn’t Christmas ’Til You Get Here” by Kylie Minogue. https://lickd.co Chapters: 00:00 Intro: Digital Nomads on Narrowboat Serenissima 00:44 It’s freezing: lighting the fire 01:29 Making Christmas arrive (Kylie + sherry tradition) 03:59 Decorations out: what’s in the bag? 06:42 The missing garland mystery 09:03 Decorating the boat and quick-lighting setup 11:36 The Christmas lighting glow-up (Hue + Twinkly demo) 14:47 Christmas evening begins (dressed up, wine, fizz) 16:37 Festive Christmas cicchetti menu 18:18 End of year reflections (best bits of 2025) 22:13 Dinner time: chicken, stuffing + cicchetti build #NarrowboatLife, #ChristmasVlog, #CanalBoat, #FloatingNomads