Christmas Comes to Nathan Phillips Square

On Sunday, Nathan Phillips Square welcomed 2013's Christmas tree.

By Steve Kupferman • Photos by Corbin Smith

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The tree arrives on a flatbed truck.

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Workers get ready to lift the tree into place with a crane.

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A tree this size won't take any ordinary tree stand.

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It takes six people three or four hours to lift the tree into place—and that's not including decoration, which happens at a later date.

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The tree is massive. It's height estimated at somewhere between 50 and 60 feet.

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Now it's mostly upright.

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But there are still some adjustments to be made.

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Looking good.

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The tree won't be decorated for a few days, so it can "settle."

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Halloween is over, and because it would be a waste of valuable time for us to spend even one day of fall or winter not anticipating a holiday of some kind, Christmas season has already come to Toronto. To be fair, Remembrance Day and Hanukkah would probably both have similarly long buildup periods if they were better at selling iPhones and Playstation 4s.

Nathan Phillips Square, meanwhile, has a legitimate excuse for getting started on the holiday season a little early. That’s because the square’s 50-to-60-foot-tall Christmas tree, supplied this year (and every year for the past 47 Christmases) by Neil Weller, of Weller Tree Service, has an installation process a little more complex than the usual.

The tree takes several days to install and decorate. First, a crew of workers uses a crane to get the massive conifer upright in front of City Hall. Then, the tree is allowed to settle into its stand for several days before it’s decorated using a cherry picker. After the tree is fully trimmed, it becomes a crucial part of the City’s annual Cavalcade of Lights celebration, which takes place this year on November 30.

Click through the image gallery for a look at this year’s tree hoisting, which happened on Sunday morning.