Public Christmas Trees

By: Elisabeth Ginsburg - About Elisabeth

Beautiful fresh cut Christmas trees pop up every December in private homes, but sometimes these holiday icons have a larger audience. Over the years many municipalities and institutions have erected lighted, and sometimes decorated trees along with other holiday symbols like menorahs.

As is often the case with trends, the vogue for outdoor community trees began in California—in Pasadena, to be exact--home of the Tournament of Roses holiday parade. The Pasadena tree was erected in December 1909 and decorated with only lights. Gradually the custom moved east and small and large towns set up their own trees. One of the most notable, in Milwaukee in 1926, was actually a tree of trees that took shape when the local telephone company set a seventy-five foot telephone pole in a cement foundation. The pole was then pocketed with four hundred holes into which individual evergreens could be inserted. Sources do not mention whether or not the giant “tree” was lighted, but it was certainly a symbol of community—many individuals coming together to form a cohesive whole.

The tree is lighted with great ceremony each year. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, English Prime Minister Winston Churchill watched the lighting with President Franklin Roosevelt in a gesture of international solidarity, Afterwards, in keeping with wartime austerity, the tree was not lit again until 1945. In 1954, After the Korean War, the tree lighting ceremony was accompanied by something new—the “Pageant of Peace”, which celebrated the universal desire for peace among men. This pageant, which also features live entertainment, continues to the present day. Now the National Christmas Tree has been joined by an array of smaller trees representing each state, U.S. territory and the District of Columbia.

Another famous tree is the Rockefeller Center Tree in New York City. Selected by the manager of Rockefeller Center Gardens, the tree is generally a seventy-five to ninety foot tall Norway Spruce grown somewhere in the northeast. Before the evergreen is even cut, Rockefeller Center personnel truss it carefully to prepare it for travel. It is transported into New York City at night with a police escort to avoid traffic. After the tree has been secured in place in the middle of Rockefeller Center, technicians wire it with twenty-five thousand multicolored lights and place a star on the top. In early December a selected dignitary flips the switch that illuminates all the lights, and New York’s most famous Christmas tree is ready to be admired by thousands of holiday visitors.