Every December since 1947, a spruce over twenty metres tall arrives in London as a present from another country. The Trafalgar Square tree is Britain’s most famous Christmas tree, and it exists because of a war debt that Norway insists on repaying annually, with a tree.
A thank-you that never stopped
During the Second World War, Norway’s King Haakon VII and his government operated in exile from London, and Britain hosted the Norwegian resistance effort. From 1947, the city of Oslo has sent a Christmas tree to London every year as thanks — a Norwegian spruce, usually more than twenty metres tall and fifty to sixty years old, selected from the forests around Oslo months or even years in advance. Norwegians call it “the queen of the forest.”
The dinner-party prequel
The tradition has a suitably strange origin story. During the war, a Norwegian commando raid brought two spruces back from occupied Norway — one intended for King Haakon in exile, and the other erected in Trafalgar Square after a dinner at the Savoy by a group of naval intelligence officers and Norwegian commandos. One of those officers was Commander Ian Fleming, later the creator of James Bond. The official gift began in 1947, but the square had already had its first Norwegian tree, planted semi-officially by people who had had a very good dinner.
Source: City of Oslo and Historic UK
Why a tree, of all things
Because by 1947 the tree had become the symbol of the season itself — a transformation that had happened barely a century earlier, when a royal engraving made the German custom universal. That story is in the history of the Christmas tree; the Trafalgar spruce is its diplomatic sequel.
Dressed for the switch-on
Tree switch-ons are outdoor, standing-still, December-evening events — the coldest brief in the season. Chunky knit and a high neck, or fleece lining; the full strategy is in layering for outdoor Christmas events.
