A suburban family's 55-foot Colorado Blue Spruce tree will soon have a new home: Millennium Park in Chicago.
The tree, which has adorned the front lawn of a Morton Grove home for decades, beat out more than 80 entries when it was selected to be the city of Chicago's 109th annual "official" Christmas tree for 2022.
"We watched the tree get old" the Morton Grove family says. "It was a backdrop for many family pictures. It used to be only as high as my husband, and he used to decorate it. After that, we watched it grow. It was just a matter of time before we have to cut it down -- but it's going out with a boom."
According to the City of Chicago, landscapers and experts evaluated every tree entry, surveying each one's thickness, width, fullness, trunk strength, how easily it can be moved and more.
At 8 a.m., crews will begin extracting the tree using tree-removal equipment like chainsaws. The tree is expected to be loaded onto a truck around 9:30 a.m., and then make its way to Chicago.
From there, it'll be decorated and spruced up, the city says, before it arrives at its new home in Millennium Park for the holiday season, beginning with the annual tree lighting ceremony on Nov. 18 in Millennium Park.
The tree will be on display through Jan. 8.
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