On December 3, 2025, the Rockefeller Center lit its Christmas tree with the traditional, annual “Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony” broadcast live on NBC and Peacock. Thousands of people filled Midtown to attend the event, despite the harsh climate confirming once again the importance of this appointment for the city.
It is a majestic Norwegian spruce – a “Norway spruce” – about 75 feet tall (about 23 meters), with a diameter of about 45 feet, and an estimated weight in 11 tons from East Greenbush, a suburb of Albany about 240 kilometers north of New York City. The fir-tree, donated by the Russ family – who planted it decades ago – brings with it a history of memory and tradition: a family that has shared for years the house and its fir-tree, and that now gives it to a whole town for the holidays. Arrived in Manhattan on December 8 and welcomed with the traditional “Meet the Tree” day, which each year marks the beginning of the preparations, it was then decorated with more than 50,000 multicoloured LED lights and surmounted by the usual Swarovski star.
The ignition is part of the special television “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” presented this year by Reba McEntire along with the conductors of “TODAY” Craig Melvin, Al Roker and Savannah Guthrie, has alternated musical performances to guest interventions. Gwen Stefani opened the evening with “Shake the Snow Globe”, returning to the stage for two further songs, “Hot Cocoa” and “You Make It Feel Like Christmas”. Halle Bailey proposed a version of “Last Christmas”, while Marc Anthony played “Christmas Auld Lang Syne”. Brad Paisley brought on stage “The First Noel” in a country dress, and Icelandic singer Laufey performed his original song “Christmas Magic”. Reba McEntire and Kristin Chenoweth also performed in the final, as well as R&B New Edition.
The central moment arrived with the countdown just before 22:00 local time and the ignition of over 50,000 lights of the fir. The event renewed a tradition that dates back to 1931, when a group of workers from the Rockefeller Center site collected money to buy a small fir and decorate it with hand-made garlands from their families. Two years later, in 1933, the first official ignition was held.
The tree will remain illuminated every evening until mid-January 2026, continuing to call visitors and New Yorkers to the Plaza. A fundamental ceremony for the Big Apple that formally opens the holidays and maintains a tradition that, in more than ninety years, has become one of the most recognizable symbols of New York winter.
L’articolo New York: lights on the Rockefeller Center fir proviene da IlNewyorkese.
