Anthem Christmas tree facts for kids
The Anthem Christmas tree is a giant Christmas tree that stands every year at the Outlets at Anthem, a shopping center north of Phoenix, Arizona. This tree is always the tallest Christmas tree in Arizona. It is also often known as one of the tallest Christmas trees in the entire United States.
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Why the Anthem Tree is Special
The Outlets at Anthem started showing off a very tall tree in 2002. Over the years, this tree became famous for being Arizona's tallest fresh-cut Christmas tree. It often reached heights of over 80 feet!
In 2010, something even bigger happened. A huge white pine tree, 110 feet tall, was put up. This made the Anthem tree the tallest fresh-cut Christmas tree in the United States for the first time! The people who manage the mall say that this amazing tree brings visitors from all over Arizona. It also gets attention from across the country.
Where the Tree Comes From and How It's Set Up
Each year, the tree is carefully chosen and cut down near McCloud, California. It comes from a special family-run tree farm in the Shasta–Trinity National Forest. These pine trees don't naturally have branches all the way down to the ground. So, to make the tree look like a traditional Christmas tree, workers add smaller trees of the same kind. These smaller trees are attached to the main trunk to create new, artificial branches. This makes the bottom of the tree full and beautiful. Up to 1,000 live branches, some as long as 13 feet, are used to give the tree its perfect shape.
To help nature, 25 young trees were planted in 2018 where the big tree was harvested. Also, about 50 pine cones from the 2014 tree were used to grow even more new trees. Sometimes, a similar giant tree is also displayed at a shopping center in Los Angeles, California, which is like a "sister" property to the Outlets at Anthem.
A special trucking company then moves the huge tree about 750 miles. This journey takes four days! The tree travels on a very long truck trailer with a big sign that says, "Follow me to Outlets at Anthem Largest Tree in Arizona."
When the tree arrives in Anthem, it's placed in a 7-foot deep well filled with water. This keeps the tree fresh until January. It's also sprayed with over 200 gallons of fire retardant to keep it safe.
The Exciting Lighting Ceremony
It takes a team of ten to twelve people several weeks to decorate the tree. They work eight-hour days, adding 5,000 ornaments and bows. They also wrap it with 80 strands of LED Christmas lights. These lights are so long that they would stretch for 1.5 miles if laid out! The ornaments range from 4 to 18 inches in size. At the very top, there's a 3-foot tall, 15-pound copper star. This copper star is special because Arizona is known as "The Copper State" due to its rich history of mining copper.
The decorating starts in late October. Then, in mid-November, a big tree-lighting ceremony takes place. This event is a fun family night with live music and holiday treats. The most exciting part is when the tree lights up for the very first time! In past years, famous singers like AJ Mitchell and Maggie Rose have performed at the ceremony.
Since 2019, the display has included an amazing interactive light show. The lights on the tree and nearby buildings flash and change colors in time with music. This nine-minute light show plays every hour each night until Christmas Eve.
One of the Tallest Trees in the U.S.
For many years, the Anthem Christmas tree has been known as one of the tallest in the United States. For example, from 2010 to 2016, the Anthem tree was between 110 and 115 feet tall. It was often listed as the tallest in the country during those years. Even in 2015, a newspaper called USA Today showed the Anthem tree as the nation's tallest at 115 feet. This was much taller than the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in Manhattan, New York, which is usually between 65 and 100 feet tall.
In more recent years, like 2017, 2018, and 2019, the Anthem tree was reported as 80 feet tall. It was still called Arizona's tallest tree.
Images for kids
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2017 Anthem Christmas tree
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2014 Anthem Christmas tree
