Trafalgar Square Christmas tree embarrassment

[Linenpickle]

Thanks to Norway for the lovely Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square but seriously, whoever decorated it needs to think again as it’s abysmal. Very little effort and I give it 0 out of 10 for decoration.

It isn’t embarrassing not to be aware of every historical fact. If anything, that comment is embarrassing. Give the OP a break.

Seriously the understanding of some members of the British Public is abysmal. 0/10 for understanding.

And…everyone has different tastes in beauty.

You’d Google first before coming to mumsnet to moan surely and if a mistake you apologise for that.

Naah. Wikipedia is a thing you know. Did you know?

I blame the loss of Blue Peter. They would do an educative piece on the history of the Trafalgar Christmas Trees pretty regularly.

The lights are shit. It's a slender type of tree and vertical string lights make it look narrower.

And to all the posters smugly saying it's tradition that it's lit like that, no it's not. The vertical string lights are modern and it used to have 'normal' string lights wrapped around it.

The current lighting is an embarrassment - it looks lazy and makes the tree look worse. The tree needs carefully placed lights that sit on the end of the branches and make it look plumper.

There’s a picture on Wikipedia of it being lit that way in 2008. It’s lit in the traditional way.

It's been like this for years. As mentioned, there's a colourful tree outside Charing Cross Station, 3 minutes walk away

The message here is "You must learn you history of why it looks crap".

Seriously if London actually cared about how poorly received it was every year they should look at doing stuff to improve it, not just this "learn your history" excuse.

I think the transportation method and probably lack of water don't help, they could look at improving that. There could be better lights or other illuminations.

Or they could just do the low effort "it looks crap because of tradition" excuse.

I must be getting old if 17 years of shit lighting counts as tradition.

Have you looked at any of the older photos?

Blue Peter covered the Trafalgar tree's arrival and the backstory from John Noakes era until the end.

Including one presenter accidentally dropping the star that was to go on top. Noakes would never have done that! He would have been up there with no safety equipment as well.

BBC NEWS | UK | Blue Peter's falling star moment https://share.google/U7oFC6n0RuFaUEDoC

I thought the OP might be warming us up for another "Sadiq Khan has ruined London" thread.

There are masses of Christmas trees across central London that are decorated in a mix of styles. You wont need to walk to find heavily decorated trees.

I think its lovely have one tree that celebrates our shared history with Norway.

I think it is beautiful and there are doubtless many other trees all over London decorated in other styles so maybe the OP can enjoy looking at them either online or in person. In my city, each local area has a tree, there is a big one in the square, another very simple one at the top of a major road into the city, one in the shopping centre and another in a rather exclusive shopping arcade so plenty of trees to suit all tastes.

Perhaps they switched the style? I genuinely don’t understand the complaints and turning your nose up at tradition.

It doesn't need to be colourful, it needs lighting placed in a way that complements the shape of the tree.

There is a middle ground between the terrible vertical lighting it has now and a highly decorated tree, like Covent Garden's. A fact that seems lost on many posters on this thread.

What seem to be lost on you is it’s lit in a traditional way as a nod to Norway, to thank them for their donation.

Thank you for posting this.
Its so pertinent at the moment to hear of European countries showing bravery working together to counter invading forces and the far-right.

What "traditional way" are you referring to?

Plain lights and no other decorations? Fine, we're in agreement.

20th century lighting style that complements the shape of the tree or 21st century vertical string lights that make it look even narrower?

Have you even seen the tree in real life?

Bloody Norwegians trees coming over here with their weird designs celebrating our countries joint history.

Should’ve just LEFT THEM TO THE NAZIs

that’ll teach em

I don’t think there’s a particular desire to make it look less narrow, though. It’s just what it is. Some years the tree we’re sent is less narrow than the current incarnation, the same lights are used regardless, I don’t think there’s a big box of alternatives to complement each shape.

So very plain.

Plain and long and narrow. Not the triangular shape we are more familiar with.

I didn't know until recently that the very first tree was apparently bought over in 1942 by a Norwegian commando secret agent, along with one for King Haakon who had fled into exile here. A boozy dinner was held at the Savoy in his honour with fellow Norwegian commandos and British Naval Intelligence officers present, one of which was Ian Fleming, who on coming across the trees apparently had the bright idea they should go and put it up in Trafalgar Square. The other was duly given to King Haakon who was moved to tears.

A nice addition to a lovely story I think.

Morning prayers used to be said in Morning assembly when I was a child at a state school. Who was pushing for that to be stopped, I wonder. So much degradation about Christianity in this Country, from the very same people complaining about being 'taken over'.