By: Tayton Ornelas
Wednesday Dec. 4, Manhattan will be lit up as the Rockefeller Christmas tree is lit for the first time this holiday season. Today.com reports that the tree consists of 50,000 multicolored lights which are all multicolored. The tree has a height of 74 feet and a width of 43 feet. The Rockefeller tree is lit every day from 5 a.m. to midnight, besides Christmas and New Year’s Eve. On Christmas Eve, the tree is lit for the entire 24 hours of the day, and on New Year’s Eve, it is lit from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. The tree will be up for display until the middle of January. The tree is then sent off to be reused by being milled for lumber and then sent to the Habitat for Humanity.
The history of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree dates all the way back to 1931. At the time, the tree was only 20 feet high and unlit. The tradition to light the tree, did not happen until 1933. During the 1950s and 1960s, the tree became more well known, thus requiring more help to deliver, put up and maintain. During this time, the height of the tree also increased. The tallest Christmas Tree to ever stand in Rockefeller Center was the tree of 1999. This tree stood 100 feet tall.
This year’s Rockefeller Tree is from Massachusetts and is roughly 70 years old. It was donated by a man named Earl Albert and his late wife. Albert stated he wanted the tree to be in Rockefeller to honor his wife’s memory. The dream to get the tree in Rockefeller Center has been a dream of Albert’s since July of 2020, when the head gardener from Rockefeller reached out to him, stating his tree would be perfect. Four years later, and the tree is there, for millions of people to see.
