City To Light Christmas Tree Tomorrow

By Chuck Sudo in News on Nov 23, 2010 5:40PM

Just in time for the holiday rush to get out of town, the city will light the official Christmas tree tomorrow at 5 p.m.

The ceremony starts a half-hour earlier with music and other entertainment. Due to budget constraints in recent years, the city has had to cut back on creating a ginormous tree in Daley Plaza out of smaller ones and this year selected the tree from a competition of homeowners offering their trees for the honor, so long as they were spruces of firs. This year's winner is the family of John Colomer of McHenry. Their 70-foot tall, nearly six-ton fir will be decorated in over 7,000 red, green and white energy-saving LED lights provided from Underwriters Laboratories, which is also sponsoring the ceremony.