Whether or not you live in New York City, you know about the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony. This beloved annual event in one of the city's most famous locations officially kicks off the holiday season.
This year's tree lighting ceremony takes place on Dec. 3 with a live broadcast of the festivities on NBC at 8 p.m. EST. The likes of Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett, Idina Menzel and Seth MacFarlane will descend upon the popular square to perform some holiday classics to get us all in the mood for the main event when the 85-foot-tall Norway spruce tree from central Pennsylvania is illuminated with 45,000 LED lights. The tree will remain lit until Jan. 7, 2015.
This tradition is obviously a big to-do these days, but it had much humbler beginnings. This grand celebration actually started during the most unglamorous of times, the Great Depression. On Christmas Eve in 1931, a group of construction workers placed a 20-foot-tall tree in what would later become Rockefeller Plaza. Back then, it was just a muddy, construction site. Cut to two years later in 1933, and a Rockefeller Center publicist organized the first official tree lighting ceremony with a 50-foot-tall tree.
Through the years, there were actually multiple trees in Rockefeller Center. Two were erected in 1936 to commemorate the opening of the ice rink, and three trees trimmed in red, white and blue filled the plaza in 1942 to show support for the war effort. Also for the war effort, the Rockefeller Center trees, in addition to all trees in the city, remained unlit because of wartime blackout regulations from 1942 until the end of the war.
The tree lighting ceremony was first broadcast on TV in 1951 on The Kate Smith Show on NBC. It also appeared on Howdy Doody from 1953 to 1955 before eventually earning its own special broadcast that airs on NBC every year.
When you've got a tree this big, it's going to take some effort to get it to its final destination. In the past, trees have been driven through the streets of Manhattan, floated down the Hudson River on a barge and flown in the world's largest transport plane all in an effort to get to Rockefeller Center.
Scouts hunt for that one lucky tree to stand in Rockefeller Center during the holiday season year-round. You can actually submit your tree for consideration through a form on Rockefeller Center's website. They traditionally select an older Norway spruce that is at least 75 feet tall and 45 feet in diameter. Most of the trees come from the suburbs of the tristate area.
Some owners whose trees have been selected in the past have received a small payment in return, like the owners of the 1996 tree who earned $2,000. However, most people donate the tree to Rockefeller Center but still take the offer of free landscaping after the tree's removal from their property.
So as you watch Cyndi Lauper belt some holiday tunes at the tree lighting ceremony this year, just remember that a lot of work went into allowing New Yorkers and all Americans alike to have some fun.
