Every year Oslo donates a Christmas tree from its snowy forests to London as a thank you for Britain’s help during World War II, often to mixed and hilarious reviews.
After the Nazi invasion of Norway in 1940, then-Norwegian king Haakon sought refuge in the British capital, and Oslo has expressed its thanks for the hospitality he received by gifting the city a Christmas spruce every year since 1947.
“It’s a token of our gratitude for the help that we received during the the Second World War,” Oslo Mayor Anne Lindboe said after taking an inaugural saw to this year’s tree at the end of last month. “But it’s also come to mean so much more. We are living in these really, really dark times and now I think the Christmas tree symbolises peace, standing together, friendship between cities.”
Photo: AFP
It might be a solidly planted friendship, but the gift does not always please its recipients.
‘Shaggy,’ ‘scrawny,’ ‘anaemic,’ and straight out ‘ugly’ are some of the adjectives fit to print that have been used to criticise the various Norwegian spruces over the years.
British social media users took particular offense to the 2021 specimen.
“Have we gone to war with Norway?” one joked. “One of those 5G masts disguised as a tree,” another said, while a third described it as “a half-plucked chicken.”
It got so bad that year that Oslo seriously considered sending a second, bushier tree.
Admittedly, the Christmas tree — which has its own account on X, formerly Twitter — sometimes loses some of its splendor on its journey. Before it goes up on Trafalgar Square, it spends several days in transit.
Flung from a truck to a boat then back to a truck, it travels from a dry and cold Nordic climate to the salty sea air and then to the mild and humid English winter.
Inevitably, a few branches get broken and pine needles shed.
“The trees that we send are generally perfect where they’re growing, but a lot of things can happen during the journey,” said grower Knut Johansson, in charge of managing Oslo’s forests.
“Once we received complaints that the tree looked like a cucumber,” he recalled. “It’s like criticizing the tree has become a bit of a sport.”
Yet every tree sent across the North Sea is carefully selected, preserved, packed, watered and shipped off on the shortest route possible.
Like an IKEA kit, dozens of extra branches are sent along to fill out the tree if necessary on arrival.
The spruce has to measure 19m to 21m, Johansson said, adding that it is not too big to be transported by road, but not so small that it looks puny next to Nelson’s Column, which towers 52m above Trafalgar Square.
British Ambassador to Norway Jan Thompson dismissed Brits’ occasional mockery of the gift.
“The point is, this is not like a Disney tree,” Thompson said. “It’s not going to be 100 percent perfect, but that’s what’s so special about it. It’s a real tree that’s been growing in a Norwegian forest.”
“Christmas isn’t really Christmas until the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square is lit,” she said.
However, rumours are circulating that Oslo is mulling whether to continue the tradition, given its environmental cost. The question is expected to be reviewed next year.
In the meantime, this year’s 70-year-old tree went up in London on Monday.
The first reviews were positive.
“Fantastic, very festive. Brings the spirit of Christmas,” said one couple with a surname very fitting of the occasion, Becky and Gareth Wood.
“It’s a lovely gesture. And it’s free,” gushed Betty and Kevin Saunders, tourists visiting from northern England.
However, on social media, party-poopers did their best to spoil the joyous mood.
“Where’s the other half of it?!” one user wrote on X, after seeing photos of the tree still lopsided after its voyage.
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