In eighty years, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has become one of the most anticipated holiday attractions. Illuminated by tens of thousands of multicolored LEDs and crowned by a three million crystal star, the spruce tree brought back from Queensbury this year measures nearly eighty feet.
The story of the Rockefeller Center tree
Here are the salient stages of the history of this tradition detailed on the website Rockefeller center
December 1931
Rockefeller Center workers pool their money to buy a 20-foot tree and decorate it with garlands handmade by their families.
December 1933
Rockefeller Center decides to make the Christmas tree an annual tradition and holds the very first lighting ceremony.
December 1936
Opening of the skating rink and first competition on the square.
November 1998
That year, the tree from Ohio was flown to New York aboard the largest cargo plane in the world, theAnatov An-124 Ruslan.
December 1999
The tree breaks all height records: thirty meters!
November 12, 2022
This year the Rockefeller Christmas tree is a spruce 25 meters high, 15 wide and weighing 14 tons. He’s from Queensbury, New York.
It will be decorated with more than 50,000 multi-colored LED lights on approximately 8km of wire.
Designed by architect Daniel Libeskind in 2018, the Swarovski star weighs approximately 410kg and features 70 points covered in 3 million crystals.
To give it enough time to decorate before being lit on Nov. 30, the tree arrived today.
The lighting
After November 30, the tree will be lit from 6am to midnight every day. On Christmas Day, the tree is lit for 24 hours and on New Year’s Day from 6am to 9pm.
After the party, the tree will be offered to the association Habitat for mankindwhich it will recycle to be used to build homes for families in need.
Do you have a very (very) large tree in your garden? suggest it be the next Rockefeller Christmas tree.
