‘Take the pagan (tree) route to 2014′

28 Nov, 2013

Read in English below | Leia em Português aqui

By Greg Willliams

Brazilians who clutch their Oyster cards and believe they are British are only half right: all you are entitled to believe after a week in London is that you are a Londoner. Being British, or English, is a very different thing – and part of it (just part) means having access to the dark pagan heart of Northern Europe. Countries with towns and ports on the North Sea all share thousands of years of culture and there are special behaviours, known here as ‘English’ which can be found in Hamburg, Tallinn, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo. And some of these ways are very different from the Brazilian (or Latin) way. Indeed the excellent Richard Lewis classic book ‘Finland, Cultural Lone Wolf ‘ many times says, in effect, ‘this typical Finnish behaviour is the opposite of Brazilian…’

It’s not necessarily a problem for Brazilians. Nobody blames you for not knowing how to behave in a culture based on ice sea journeys or long days in a snowy forest at 30 degrees below freezing. The differences come up in things like eye-contact, time-keeping, attitude to promises, money and, famously, our approach to getting drunk. Tree magic is no longer very explicit in English life but our ‘Christmas tree’ obsession is a sort of vestigial trace. One place you can feel both this ‘Call of the North’ is from 5th Dec in Trafalgar Square where we enjoy open-air singing underneath the great pine tree sent from Norway every year since the war. Take part in the procession on the 8th, too.

Read about ‘Where to see Christmas in London’ here

(…)A tradition since 1947, the Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square appears from 5th December and remains until 6th January . The tree is an annual gift from Norway to England, as a thank you for supporting the people and protecting the exiled heads of the Norwegian state when the country was held by the Nazi regime during the Second World War.

The tree is decorated in a traditional Norwegian style, with vertical strings of lights. The square will stage a procession and various choirs will perform, collecting money for charity.