Wondering what went wrong and where did our budget go this year ? LONDONERS could have collected more if they gave a heads up on the need for money to put a Real Tree !!





by maddylaw

28 comments

  1. The tree itself is a gift from the city of Oslo: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Square_Christmas_tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Square_Christmas_tree)

    It’s very nice of the people of Oslo to give this gift each year, as they have done for 77 years(!).

    It is a shame that London/the City of Westminster doesn’t do a better job of decorating it, though I don’t personally think it should be decorated in an overly gaudy manner. There’s a balance to be found between “hapazardly drape some lights on it” and “use as launchpad for firework displays”.

  2. Wow, that tree looks exactly like my 20k ppl home town does it every year.

  3. Yanks constantly missing the point of the Trafalgar Square tree will never not be funny

  4. Thank you Norway for the tree.

    pauses video at 17s.

    Tree looks…’anaemic’?

    Still would make a lovely gesture if there was a box to donate an ornament and those could be used to adorn the tree. Missed opportunity?

  5. It looks the same as it does every year. It’s decorated in a more traditional way to respect the history of it. 

    Personally I also prefer it, rather than having a gazillion lights. 

  8. The gift tree is decorated like that deliberately, it’s in the style of traditional Norwegian tree lights – simple long lines of lights. If you want gaudy Disney spangle-tastic trees London is full of them too

  9. Hot take, but I think it looks fine. It doesn’t have to be a gaudy light show, it has meaningful historical context, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, etc, etc, true meaning of Christmas, etc.

  10. I much prefer it to the others in that vid! Looks like a tree rather than a fairground ride.

    Also surely fireworks *inside* a tree could go very very wrong?

  11. Damn right it’s the best tree. It’s the only one of those shown which is a gift from a friend for helping them fight fascism. Cut down from a Norwegian forest by burly people in plaid shirts. Probably.

  13. Take away all the context and the video is a tad humorous

  14. The trouble is there are also lots of fancier trees paid for by BIDs and other businesses if you want your Instagram. My Favourites are

    Clermont Charing Cross and Pan Pacific Houndsitch,

    Granary Square and Lewis Cubitt Square, Kings Cross

    The Wallace and Gromit Models in Battersea Power Station

    https://preview.redd.it/l6qt77zq0f7e1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43d6d1bc3d08fd4bc050a885d061e7cfdb057c10

    Then there is also the monument to the true meaning of Christmas, advertising in St Pancras (Not actually my favourite but I feel no need to shit on it).

  15. If you want fancy go to Covent Garden. This is the Norway tree.

  16. Christ this rubbish has migrated from tiktok to here now has it

  17. Every year. This discourse. Educate yourselves. It’s not an original thought. People complain every year. But it’s just ignorance. It’s tiresome.

  19. It looks like that because that is how it is traditionally decorated in Norway, who gift the tree every year to London.

    Plus, in my view, it looks pretty nice. We are not trying to drain the power grid or provide a runway light for aircraft here. Its a Christmas tree. And for once it would be nice if we pushed back on this idea that decorations are rubbish if they cannot be seen from 3 miles away.

  20. I think getting a traditional gift, from a friend, with deep historical ties and cultural significance, outshines all the gaudy trinkets in the world

  21. funny! I saw that, when it first went on display, and as a foreigner, I assumed that there was another, larger and gaudier “official” tree somewhere else.

  22. The others all look like that las Vegas sphere.

    London has a nice tree 🙂

  23. I trade authenticity, tradition and history over “ooo pretty decorations” every time.

  25. tell me you don’t know anything about the Trafalgar square tree without telling me you don’t know anything about the Trafalgar square tree.

  26. [It’s beautiful on the INSIDE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA9fwO2jvQo&t=1s)

    TLDR:

    1. We don’t pay for the tree. It’s a gift from Norway.
    2. The reason Norway sends us a tree is because we kept the Norwegian Royal Family safe during WW2 when Norway was invaded and occupied by the Nazis.
    3. We also supplied and helped train the Norwegian Resistance.
    4. The alliance between Britain and Norway was critical in the prevention of the development of a Nazi atomic bomb.
    5. The first tree Norway sent us was sent while the Nazis were still occupying Norway. The Resistance smuggled it over to the UK.
    6. Norway have sent us a tree every year ever since.
    7. It’s not a farmed Christmas Tree – it’s an 80-year-old natural-grown Pine Tree from Norway’s Pine Forests.
    8. It’s a symbol of friendship between our two nations in a time when a lot of us don’t exactly feel great about the state of Geopolitics and our position on the world stage.

  28. Ours is the only one that looked like it changed shape when it was turned on though.

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