Christmas comes 136 days early
The tree at this pub near Bristol is already up but at least there’s no Santa on the roof – yet BRITAIN may be in the grip of a record-breaking heatwave but that has not stopped one pub from kicking off the festive season early.
The Air Balloon in Filton, near Bristol, put up a Christmas tree last Thursday while the town baked in temperatures of 70F (21C).
There may be still 136 days to go until Christmas but the fake fir is already decorated with gold and silver baubles.
And landlady Joanne Johnson admitted she would have put it up even earlier if it had not been for the World Cup.
“Last year I put up the tree in July,” she said. “But I delayed it a bit this year because of the World Cup.” She added: “I did have some regulars saying to me, ‘It’s late this year’.”
Ms Johnson, who has been in charge of the pub for three years, explained that Christmas bookings suffer if the tree is put up later.
Purpose
“I don’t really do it for the purpose of decorating the pub, it’s more for advertising – to let people know that we’ve started taking Christmas dinner bookings,” she said.
“I understand that some people will come in and don’t really appreciate seeing a tree up and so on. But most people enjoy it and some even have a jokey sing-song.”
Ms Johnson is not alone in her early celebrations. Earlier this week, customers at a Tesco superstore in Bradley Stoke, Bristol, spotted huge quantities of festive-themed chocolate boxes on display for £5 each.
And children in Norfolk have been enjoying Christmas dinner early after a group of youngsters from Belarus came to stay with families in Diss.
The Friends of Chernobyl’s Children charity wanted to show them a traditional British festive meal with roast turkey, carols – and even a special summer visit from Father Christmas.