Famous Christmas Trees – Trafalgar Square

Every year, the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree is decorated in traditional Norwegian style, with five hundred individual white lights and it has become a traditional London Christmas image.

It's a tradition that dates back sixty years, to when Norway was invaded by German forces in 1940. King Haakon VII escaped to Britain and a Norwegian exile government was set up in London, so to many Norwegians, London came to represent the spirit of freedom during those difficult years. Not only that, but London contributed to the Norwegian resistance and trained many of its officers, and the latest war news was broadcast from London, in Norwegian, to give those remaining in Norway inspiration and hope. As a result, the first tree was brought over in 1947 as a token of Norwegian appreciation of British friendship.

The tree itself, a Norwegian spruce (Picea abies), is chosen with great care from the forests around Oslo, it is chosen for Trafalgar Square several years in advance. The Norwegian foresters who look after these earmarked trees describe them as 'the queens of the forest'.

The tree is cut down in November during a ceremony in which the Lord Mayor of Westminster, the British ambassador to Norway and the Mayor of Oslo take part. Local and international schoolchildren sing Christmas carols and the city authorities serve 'forest coffee' and sandwiches to a large crowd. Then the tree, which is usually around seventy feet in height and anything between fifty and sixty years old, is shipped across the North Sea by a special crew which also hauls it from the docks to Trafalgar Square, entirely free of charge. To raise the tree, they make a scaffold, winch the tree upright and sink it four feet into the ground before striking in wooden wedges.

Absinthe photograph by Fanch, used under a creative commons attribution licence.