Kmflett's Blog

The Culture War on Christmas Trees is back

In 2022 Michael Mosbacher writing in the Telegraph (where else aside from the Times or Mail) claimed that the ‘woke mob’ has declared war on Christmas trees.

Mr Mosbacher has visited some of the great cultural institutions of London such as the Tate and found that they either have some other form of seasonal display not involving a tree or nothing at all. Reassuringly he found a tree and lots of Christmas baubles at the Ritz.

His assumption is that a lack of Christmas Trees is due to wokery though he doesn’t seem to have checked. It may of course be down to environmental concerns or simply that trees make a lot of mess with dropped pine needles and then have to be disposed of.

Its become a seasonal obsession for the far right and in 2025 Christmas Tree expert Stephen Yaxley Lennon has whinged that the Trafalgar Square tree is not up to standard.

I’m not the greatest fan of LibDem leader Ed Davey but his Christmas message focused on the Trafalgar Square tree is mostly to the point. Its been gifted every year since 1947 from Oslo to mark the assistance that Britain gave in the fight against the Nazi occupation of the City and country. We can perhaps understand why Yaxley Lennon is not keen on a tree that symbolises the fight against fascism

Like so much else at Christmas the tree is an invented tradition. It came to Britain in the early 1840s which may explain why Scrooge got a giant turkey for the Cratchits but not a tree. Dickens published the Christmas Carol on 19^th December 1843.

It was Prince Albert who popularised the Christmas Tree with Royal celebrations in 1848 and a tradition reinvented in 1947