Millennium Park Holiday Tree Lighting Nov 19
When: November 19, 2021 5:30pm-7:45pm Tree up Friday, November 19, 2021-January 9, 2022.
Where: Millennium Park, Michigan Avenue at Washington Street
This year the tree lighting is live!
- 5:30–6pm: Preshow with DJ Selah Say
- 6pm: Tree Lighting Ceremony featuring Mariachi Herencia de Mexico, the cast of Chicago Opera Theater performing an excerpt from “Becoming Santa Claus;” a youth dance ensemble from the Kenwood School of Ballet; and special guests Dreezy Claus and Sister Claus.
- 6:30pm: Fireworks
- 6:35–7:45pm: Concert featuring DJ Selah Say; Cirque du Soleil performing an excerpt of ‘Twas the Night Before…;” Chicago Soul Spectacular performing a high-energy Soul Christmas medley; and singer-songwriter Brian McKnight
2021 victim tree is a 46-foot, 51 year old Blue Spruce from the Logan Square neighborhood Chicago, Illinois
2021 victim Tree
History of Chicago’s Christmas Tree
Millennium Park Holiday Tree Lighting Nov 19 – Related
Maggie Daley Park Skating Ribbon Nov 19-March 6
McCormick Tribune Ice Rink Nov 19-March 6
The City of Chicago’s 1913 Christmas Tree in Grant Park. Photo from City of Chicago website.Per the City of Chicago website: Chicago’s first municipal Christmas tree was lit in 1913 on Christmas Eve by Mayor Carter H. Harrison in Grant Park. The tree was a 35-foot Douglas Spruce placed on 40-foot poles and studded with smaller trees to give the appearance of a much larger tree. It was decorated with 600 multi-colored lights and topped with the Star of Bethlehem.
The first Christmas tree was a gift of an associate of Captain Herman Scheunemann whose “Christmas Tree Ship” was lost in a storm in Lake Michigan on November 23, 1912.
As the years went on the city continued to create larger trees from many small trees. By 1956the tree was 70 feet tall, decorated with about 4,400 lights and more than 2,000 ornaments, and was located in the Grant Park tree platform at Congress Parkway and Michigan Avenue.
The Tree Lighting Ceremony was moved to Civic Center Plaza, known today as Daley Plaza, in December 1966.
In 1982, the location was changed to State Street and Wacker Drive, but returned to Daley Plaza the following year.
In 1991, Chicago’s Mayor Daley II asked the Department of Streets and Sanitation to find a large single tree to be transplanted in a city park after the holidays. The largest they could find was 35 feet tall. Hizzoner deemed that not large enough so the City killed 17 more trees to make it 50 feet tall.
In 2008 the City killed 112 trees used to form one large tree.
I’m not sure at what point the City started killing single giant 70 plus foot tall trees that are generally 60-70 years old. The site omits that information.
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Pam Schwetz says
Since it is in Millenium Park it would be more earth friendly and make more sense to plant an evergreen tree that would grow every year and live there year round and just be decorated for Christmas rather than continue the barbaric tradition of killing trees. We need trees for oxygen and they are just beautiful and deserve to live. It is such a waste to kill a magnificent tree so people can look at it for a month or two before it gets chopped up into little pieces. Really is a senseless tradition that should be corrected. Just in general that tradition should be scrapped. People should plant an evergreen tree they can decorate if they want to. If they can’t plant a tree then they should get a fake tree they can put together every year and take down without hurting any real trees.
Carol says
I wish they would do that.