Darien family's 45-foot Colorado blue spruce to be Chicago's official Christmas tree
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The kickoff to Christmas is officially underway. The City of Chicago has chosen this year's official Christmas tree to be displayed at Millennium Park.
This year's tree is a 45-foot Colorado blue spruce donated by the De La Cruz family in southwest suburban Darien.
The tree has been outside their home for 37 years, but soon will get new life by lighting up Millennium Park.
It was chosen from among 100 applications to be this year's official city Christmas tree.
The city chooses a tree based not only on how tall and full it is, but the logistics of cutting it down and getting it to Millennium Park.
"Once we get down to about a dozen or so trees, we start looking at the families that have submitted letters, and what their story is, and this story was certainly very heartwarming," said Neal Heitz, director of event production at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
Abbey De La Cruz nominated her family's tree. Her parents recently retired as nurses, and her mother often saw the Christmas trees in Millennium Park, and Abbey thought their tree could be one of them.
"My parents moved to this house about 37 years ago. They were able to immigrate from the Philippines. They were nurses. They both ended up in Chicago and met in a nursing home working. They were able to raise a family here, and have us and this beautiful home, and just to return the blessings back to Chicago, we'd like to donate the tree," she said.
Abbey said it's been a family tradition to decorate the tree for Christmas, starting with her grandfather.
"He ended up decorating the tree because he was the tallest one," she said. "At one point, I think we ended up putting a little star on top of the tree, and then it got a little bit bigger, and my grandpa passed away, and my mom took over the tradition until it was too big to decorate by ourselves."
Darien Mayor Joseph Marchese said it's a big deal for the suburb to have one of its trees chosen to be the official Chicago Christmas tree in Millennium Park.
"This is an example of the type of things that go on in Darien, the type of people that we have in Darien. You know, our motto is 'Darien is a nice place to live,' and I told the family Darien is also a nice place to grow trees," he said.
After being cut down, it will be moved to Millennium Park, at the corner of Washington and Michigan, where it will be decorated before the official tree lighting on Nov. 17. CBS 2's Irika Sargent and Joe Donlon will emcee the tree lighting.