One place in London wins the award for unorthodox Christmas tree time and time again: St Pancras station.
Previous incarnations of the St Pancras tree have included those fashioned out of Lancôme perfume bottles, Lego and Disney soft toys. In 2024, the station continues its trend of teaming up with major brands, with an 11-metre-tall diorama of Oz — aka the Emerald City — as featured in the upcoming Wicked movie. To paraphrase the movie Wicked takes its cue from, there's no tree like St Pancras's.
Made up of 100+ turrets, this is one clever pedestal of marketing. Aside from the fact it'll be snapped by many thousands of people as they bustle through the station, booths at the foot of the tree invite you to watch Wicked trailers and behind-the-scenes footage — as well as peer into ovoid windows to ogle a miniature land of Oz, replete with 1,000 flowers and a yellow brick road.
It ticks a few Christmas tree boxes too. It's green. The illuminated windows stand in nicely for fairy lights. If you squint, it looks like a (lopsided) fir. Plus, the Wizard of Oz itself has always been something of a festive favourite, even if not explicitly Christmassy. In short: this is one of the station's best trees yet.
Anyone complaining this isn't a 'proper' tree should know that it took 20 craftspeople over 4,000-hours to put this fairytale erection together. That's roughly twice as long than it'll take you to untangle that clump of fairy lights you get down from the attic. Anyway, you can't deny St Pancras's tree is officially Wicked.
If they've missed one trick though, it's not having a yellow brick escalator.
