In honor of tonight’s Rockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, I have gathered pictures of some of the most well decorated and creative Christmas trees. I hope that these help inspire some of your own decorating! Enjoy!
Tag: Rockefeller Center
A Tree for New York City
Last year, I wrote a post about the Rockefeller Christmas Tree. Matt works near Rockefeller Center and on November 12th when he was walking to work, he passed by the Christmas tree that had just been brought in for the holiday season. I used this pictures in my post where I wrote about the history of this famous tree. That day my blog was Freshly Pressed and a few thousand people visited “The Little Things” that day to read more about the holiday festivities of New York City.
As I wrote last year, many Rockefeller trees are given to Rockefeller Center by regular citizens (I know, I was shocked too when I learned that there wasn’t a giant tree farm outside of NYC that supplied giant Christmas trees). Members of the Gardens Division of Rockefeller Center, scout in a helicopter for the desired tree in areas including Connecticut, Vermont, Ohio, upstate New York, New Jersey, and even Ottawa, Canada. Once a suitable tree is located, a crane supports it while it is cut, and moves it to a custom telescoping trailer that can transport trees up to 125 feet (38 m) tall, although the width of New York City streets passing through Rockefeller Center limits the height of the trees to 110 ft.
Most New Yorkers don’t learn the history of the tree until the night of the tree lighting when the commentators tell its story. Thankfully, I have an “in” to this year’s tree – my amazing Grandfather!
This year’s Rockefeller Christmas tree hails from a small town in Pennsylvania called Mifflinville. This town is just 5 miles from the little town that my grandparents, aunt and uncle home. So you can imagine their excitement when they learned that the very tree that brought me blogging fame and glory last year, would be coming from their neck of the woods for this year’s holiday season. My grandfather diligently cut out the newspaper articles and mailed them over for my blogging purposes!
This year’s tree was nearly cut down by its owners 30 years ago; however after giving it a little pruning, he decided to keep in on his property. Thankfully he did. While driving along Interstate 80 last march, Rockefeller’s head gardener spotted this 75-year-old, 75 foot tall Norway spruce and knew it would be the perfect tree for the world’s most famous tree stand. After months of preparations and frequent visits to tend to the spruce, the official decision to send this tree to New York City.
The South Center Township Police were hired to watch the property on Halloween weekend and 24 hours a day starting on November 2nd. And as a thank you to the tree’s owners, they have been invited to visit New York this holiday season as guests of Rockefeller Center. And in the spring, the center gardening team will return to Mifflinville to plant an umbrella pine in the tree’s place.
On the morning of Wednesday November 10th, camera crews, radio personalities and approximately 150 locals gathered to watch the chain saw make quick work of the soon-to-be famous tree. In about six minutes, one man sliced through the 5-foot-wide trunk. A crane slowly lifted the tree and loaded it onto the 115-foot “tree trailer” and made to drive to the big city.
The tree branches will be covered with more than 30,000 lights and topped with the Swarovski crystal star, a 9.5 foot diameter creation made from 25,000 crystals and another 720 lightbulbs. The lights will be lit for the first time during the annual Tree Lighting Ceremony on Wednesday November 30th and the tree will remain up through the January 7th for the thousands of tourists who visit New York over the holiday season.
But what is most interesting about this story is what happens to the tree afterwards. After the holidays, the tree will become lumber for Habitat for Humanity and any remnants will be ground into pulp for paper to be used in printing of “The Carpenter’s Gift: A Christmas Tale about the Rockefeller Center Tree.”
Thank you grandpa for providing this incredible story. It could not be more fitting that he sent me this story; my grandparents love Christmas more than anyone I know. Not the material aspect, but the joy that comes from decorating their house (they have made hundreds of homemade holiday decorations over the years!) and the beauty of a well decorated tree. Thank you for passing down your love of the holidays to my mom, and now to me. I can’t wait until next Sunday to send you pictures of my tree!
Under Pressure
As many of you know, on Friday I was featured on word press’ main page Freshly Pressed. I had an amazing response and a lot of new visitors to my blog. In the past three days, I received more than 5,000 hits, which is pretty incredible considering it took me five months before I reached that number of hits. It was quite a weekend and a truly surreal experience. Now I am faced with only one problem…
What to write about for my next post.
The pressure is unbelievable. I started having nightmares last night and have spent the entire morning brainstorming ideas… Should I feature a DIY project? Or a new recipe? Should I write more about the Rockefeller Christmas Tree (it is standing now…)
Or should I write about tonight’s highly anticipated Glee episode featuring Gwyneth Paltrow?
While all of these would make great blog posts, they didn’t feel “good enough.” I then got the idea to feature some of my fellow bloggers who commented on my post. However, more than 70 people commented over the weekend and I don’t think I have enough time to go through and write-up a summary about each of these wonderful blogs. Although, I am making a point to visit and comment on each of these blogs.
Then I decided that I would feature videos from You Tube that always make me smile.
(This is why I want kids)
(This is why I wish life was a musical)
(This is why no one fully understands Abby’s and my sense of humor)
(This is why I can’t wait to marry Matt!)
And while I hope that these videos brought a smile to your face, they still don’t feel like enough. Again, I am faced with the dilemma… how do I follow-up a post the received more than 5,000 hits?
This simple answer is, I don’t. I have come to the realization that I can’t change my blog just because a few more people happened to click-through to my site. If I did that, I would just be focusing on the big things because the little things would never seem good enough. The whole reason I started writing this blog was to keep a positive outlook on life. I can’t stop doing that because of the big things in my life. So while I am extremely excited to have been featured on freshly pressed and I spent the weekend approving comments and tracking my stats, my focus remains the same. I am continuing to focus on the little things in life.
Thank you word press for picking my blog and thank you readers and fellow bloggers for clicking through. I hope you continue to follow along, comment and spread PMA.
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Every year millions of tourists come to New York City to catch a glimpse of the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree and skate a few laps around the world-renowned ice skating rink. The tree gives people a reason to celebrate. It serves as a symbol of hope, a beacon of peace and is the official sign that the holiday season is upon us. This year’s tree arrived in Rockefeller Center this morning and will be raised later today. No matter how hard I try to hold off on celebrating Christmas until Thanksgiving has passed, it is difficult not to be excited by this sight.
(A special thank you to Matt for stopping to take these pictures on his way to work!)
Although the official Christmas tree tradition at Rockefeller Center began in 1933 (the year the 30 Rockefeller Plaza opened),the unofficial tradition began during the Depression-era construction of Rockefeller Center, when workers decorated a small 20 foot balsam fir-tree with strings of cranberries, garlands of paper, and even a few tin cans on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1931. Some accounts have the tree decorated with the tin foil ends of blasting caps. Click here for a photo tribute and history of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree.
Many Rockefeller trees were given to Rockefeller Center by donors.Members of the Gardens Division of Rockefeller Center, scout in a helicopter for the desired tree in areas including Connecticut, Vermont, Ohio, upstate New York, New Jersey, and even Ottawa, Canada. Once a suitable tree is located, a crane supports it while it is cut, and moves it to a custom telescoping trailer that can transport trees up to 125 feet (38 m) tall, although the width of New York City streets passing through Rockefeller Center limits the height of the trees to 110 ft. This year’s tree is 74 feet tall and hails from the town of Mahopac (in Putnam County) which is located approximately 50 miles from Manhattan. The 75-year-old Norway spruce, is especially meaningful since it comes from the yard of 9/11 first responder and firefighter and was found on September 11th of this year.
Once at the Rockefeller Center, the tree is supported by four guy wire attached at its midpoint, and by a steel spike at its base. Scaffolding is put up around the tree to assist workers in putting up 30,000 lights attached to 5 miles of wiring. The star that has topped the tree since 2004 is 9.5 feet in diameter and weighs 550 pounds and is made out of the famous Swarovski crystals.
This year, the annual Christmas at Rockefeller Center tree lighting celebration will take place on November 30, 2010.
The Little Things 