Tree
The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree is typically a 50- to 60-year-old Norway spruce, generally over 20 metres tall. The tree is cut sometime in November during a ceremony attended by the British Ambassador to Norway, Mayor of Oslo, and Lord Mayor of Westminster. After the tree is cut it is shipped to Great Britain by sea. At one time it was shipped to Felixstowe free of charge by a cargo ship of the Fred Olsen Line. As of at least 2007 the tree was shipped across the North Sea to Immingham by DFDS Tor Line.
The Trafalgar Square tree is decorated in a traditional Norwegian style and adorned with 500 white lights. In 2008, the tree utilised low-wattage halogen bulbs which used 15 amps (3.5 kW) of power.
At the base of the tree stands a plaque, bearing the words:
This tree is given by the city of Oslo as a token of Norwegian gratitude to the people of London for their assistance during the years 1940-45.
A tree has been given annually since 1947.
Read more about this topic: Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree
Famous quotes containing the word tree:
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity ... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“What I want to say, Linda,
is that there is nothing in your body that lies.
All that is new is telling the truth.
I’m here, that somebody else,
an old tree in the background.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)