Thanks Sagres they are lovely - how was your weather?

Thanks Glynis.
Weather was amazing-two hours of cloud one lunchtime,otherwise wall-to-wall sunshine.Shorts and t shirt most of the time ( mind you, the locals thought we had flipped !!)One afternoon,on the hotel's terrace on the roof,the temp touched 78f for a short while.It went cool after sundown but a fleece over a shirt was enough - except one time at 03:35 returning to the hotel from the bar - but that's another story............ !!!!!!

Where did you prefer at Christmas Lagos or Albufeira? As I know you've now been to both

We weren't in Lagos for Christmas - came home on the 23rd - but,now that we know what's open in Lagos at that time, there's no doubt whatsoever -Lagos every time !!
We chose Albufeira last year because,at the time we decided on going away for Christmas,we had no idea what would be open so wanted All-inclusive and that's not available in Lagos.If we had chosen to go to Lagos last year and were unable to find anywhere open for Christmas Dinner, we would,almost certainly, have been invited( or forced, more likely ) to our Portuguese friends' home for Dinner and,as much as I love Portuguese food, there's no way I was going to have bacalhau (salted cod) for my Christmas dinner !!!!

When I said

we would,almost certainly, have been invited( or forced, more likely ) to our Portuguese friends' home for Dinner

I didn't mean it to sound like that - what I meant was that the Portuguese are so friendly they would insist on offering you hospitality and would certainly be hurt if you declined.

Nice pics Sagres, mind you it looks very quit.

Thanks Mick.
Yes,the town was fairly quiet but not as quiet as it looks.The photos were taken at about 9:00 p.m. when we were on our way to a restaurant;most of the tourists were eating by then and nearly all the locals who didn't have to be out tended to disappear as soon as the sun went down.Apart from the shot of the Rua 25 Abril where I spotted a couple of locals and waited for them to get in shot, I tried to photograph the others with as few people as possible in shot.

Lovely pix. Next year, (all being well!) my wife and I will spend the Christmas holidays in Lagos instead of Funchal, as we have done since 1999.

Thanks,Dan.
I'm sure you won't regret it - the town dresses up in style for Christmas.
Just one thing,though;if you're cosidering sailing down make sure you take Christmas lights for the mast and rigging, as lots of the boats on the marina put lights up.