With the switching on of some 50,000 lights on the world-famous Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York kicked off the warm season of the Christmas season. At last night’s ceremonial ceremony (local time), the giant Norwegian spruce was turned on for the first time this season, to the applause of thousands of visitors.
AP/Invision/Charles Sykes
This year’s tree is about 80 to 85 years old, 24 meters tall and 13 meters in diameter. The twelve-ton spruce comes from a small town in New York State, about three and a half hours northwest of New York City.
The lighting of the ornate tree has been celebrated annually since the early 1930s and is one of New York’s most popular Christmas traditions, similar to ice skating at the nearby ice rink, which is now open.
Ice skating at the White House
This year, a select group will also be able to ice skate in front of the White House, in the capital Washington. First Lady Jill Biden presented the temporary achievement yesterday in the garden of the US government headquarters in Washington.
At the opening there were several presentations by professional figure skaters. In the coming weeks, select children will skate there, but not the general public, CBS reported. For example, children from the capital and children of soldiers and rescue teams would be invited.
It is not the first time that ice skating has taken place in the White House garden: in 1980, the then US presidential couple Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter had an ice skating rink built at the government headquarters for Christmas – and also invited a Olympic figure skating champion, Peggy Fleming, for the opening.