The 2025 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree—a 75-foot Norway spruce—will be cut next week in East Greenbush, outside Albany, before beginning its 130-mile journey to Midtown Manhattan. The annual selection is one of the country’s most enduring holiday rituals, and this year’s tree continues a pattern familiar to New Yorkers: it once again comes from upstate.
The tree grew for more than 60 years on the property of the Russ family, who submitted it for consideration earlier this year. “I’m excited to make more cherished memories with my family and childhood friends as it becomes the world’s Christmas tree,” says homeowner Judy Russ in a statement released by Rockefeller Center.
After being cut on November 6, the tree will travel by flatbed truck down the Hudson River corridor to Rockefeller Plaza, where it will be hoisted into place by crane. From there, a crew led by head gardener Erik Pauze—who has overseen tree selection and preparation for more than two decades—will spend weeks decorating the 12-ton spruce with roughly 50,000 LED lights. The tree will be topped with the 900-pound Swarovski star designed by architect Daniel Libeskind. Containing 70 spikes and more than 3 million crystals, the star has been part of the tree since 2018.
“What I look for is a tree you’d want in your living room, but on a grander scale,” Pauze says of the selection process. “It needs to make people smile the second they see it.”
The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree tradition dates to 1931, when construction workers building Rockefeller Center erected a modest 20-foot balsam fir on the muddy construction site as a gesture of holiday spirit during the Great Depression. The first formal lighting ceremony was held in 1933, and since then the tree has grown into a nationally televised event. This year’s lighting ceremony will take place Wednesday, December 3, broadcast live on NBC.
While the tree is a national symbol, it has a strong regional identity: New York State is a frequent source, with many trees coming from private landowners in rural communities. The Hudson Valley has been well represented in the past decade alone. In 2015, the tree came from Gardiner in Ulster County, and in 2019 another Norway spruce was harvested in Florida, Orange County. Trees have also come from Putnam and Dutchess counties in past decades. This year marks the 13th time since 2010 that the tree has come from New York.
Once the holiday season ends in early January, the East Greenbush spruce will begin its second life. Since 2007, Rockefeller Center has donated the lumber from each tree to Habitat for Humanity, where it is milled for use as framing materials in affordable housing projects. Recent Rockefeller Center timbers have been used in home-building efforts as far away as Mississippi, Tennessee, and New Jersey.
In terms of raw scale, this year’s tree is typical for Rockefeller Center: 75 feet tall, 45 feet wide, and estimated to be around 80 years old. But like most of its predecessors, its value lies more in symbolism than size. For a brief season, a tree rooted quietly in a family yard outside Albany will become part of the public imagination—another upstate evergreen drafted into service as a shared cultural landmark.
The tree will remain on display through early January. Visitors can view it daily at Rockefeller Plaza between West 49th and 50th Streets in Manhattan.
Wow, Exciting!