Omaha family emotional as memory-filled tree harvested for Christmas at Union Station - WOWT

maknains.blogspot.com

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - On Monday morning near 29th and Castelar, heavy equipment rolled into the neighborhood as Omaha family members took one final picture with a giant piece of their history.

“It was very emotional when I walked into grandmas house,” said family member Joyce Synowiecki. “Just now there were big tears in my eyes.”

“It was just unbelievable, the journey that this tree went through,” said Cathie, another family member.

Harvesting the city’s official Christmas tree is an annual tradition.

Most members of the tree-handling crew have done this before but it takes a while to secure the tree, cut it down, and load it into a giant trailer.

“We probable have, all in all, a team of 25 to 35 people,” said Jessica Brummer of the Durham Museum. “Union Pacific brings about four huge trucks to get the tree out of here.”

The tree then makes its way through the streets of Omaha, with a police escort, to where a crowd anxiously awaits the tree’s arrival.

Getting the giant Christmas tree off the trailer and ready to slide into the museum is the hard part. Once in place, it takes almost no time to drag the tree onto the floor of the great hall.

“They will start decorating the tree this afternoon and it will take them all week to get everything done,” said Brummer. “It’s about 500 ornaments, these are not your normal ornaments - these are a foot long.”

“That kind of thing...” she added. “We are switching to all white lights this year - we got a special tree topper that’s a nod to Union Station’s 90th anniversary.”

But like last year, the tree-lighting ceremony will be a virtual event.

Crowds used to gather at the museum and join the countdown to celebrate the start of the Christmas season with the lighting of the city’s tree, but COVID-19 has changed all of that.

“It’s not a situation where we have seats or can spread people out, it’s an event where people all stand around and we just could not come up with a safe way where we could all accommodate enough people to make it fair,” said Brummer. “We don’t want it to also be just a select amount of people got to get in and no one else would be able to experience the Omaha Christmas tree, so this is the best way we thought most of Omaha would be able to experience it coming to life.”

Durham Museum officials say six to eight thousand people watched the virtual tree-lighting ceremony last year.

This year’s program will run about a half-hour with, of course, the presence of Santa Claus.

The virtual event begins at 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving night.

Copyright 2021 WOWT. All rights reserved.

Adblock test (Why?)

"filled" - Google News
November 16, 2021 at 02:41AM
https://ift.tt/3qK2xlU

Omaha family emotional as memory-filled tree harvested for Christmas at Union Station - WOWT
"filled" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2ynNS75
https://ift.tt/3feNbO7

Bagikan Berita Ini