Fact Check-Tesco is celebrating Christmas, contrary to misleading online posts 

By Reuters Fact Check

Tesco’s decision to name one of its festive products a "luxury evergreen tree", rather than a Christmas tree, is not evidence the British supermarket is no longer celebrating the Christian festival, contrary to online posts.

"Wow!! Tesco ARE NO LONGER CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS. Their #Christmastrees are now called Evergreen trees!?! What a disgrace. Appeasing a certain minority," said a November 17 post on Facebook, sharing a picture of the tree's packaging, which had "Tesco 6.5ft luxury evergreen tree" written on it and, below, an image of a Christmas tree and lights in the background. An identical post on X received 2.2 million views.

However, there are several pieces of evidence to show Tesco has not stopped celebrating Christmas, including dozens of products marked as Christmas trees on its website, its 2025 Christmas advert and a campaign to encourage shoppers to give Christmas presents to under-privileged children.

"We are proudly celebrating Christmas at Tesco and have a range of real and artificial Christmas trees in store as part of a wide selection of Christmas products to help our customers celebrate Christmas this year," said a Tesco spokesperson in an email to Reuters.

"This product is described as an 'evergreen tree' to make it clear which type of Christmas tree is inside the box and help customers to distinguish between the many Christmas trees in the range. Elsewhere on the box it is clearly marked that this product is part of our Christmas category."

In October, Ken Murphy, Tesco's chief executive, said the supermarket was "betting on a good Christmas, we have a lot of confidence in the strength of our offer". In January, he said Christmas 2024 had been the supermarket’s "biggest ever".

VERDICT

Misleading. There are several pieces of evidence that Tesco is celebrating Christmas, and one product is not evidence that it is shunning the Christian festival.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.

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