Jody Mason didn’t need to be the daughter of an Indiana tree farmer to know the massive spruce in her front yard would make for a great Christmas tree, because all who visited would tell her so.
“Every time someone comes to the house, they always comment, ‘this would be a nice City of Chicago Christmas tree,’” said Mason, of Glenview.
The Greek chorus of friends and neighbors have turned out to be seers: the 68-foot Norway spruce was removed by landscapers Monday morning in preparation for transport to Millennium Park, where it will be anointed Chicago’s 112th official Christmas tree.
“It’s a very fitful send-off, and we’re very excited for it,” Jody said.
The spruce, planted as a 1-foot sapling sometime in the 1980s, already towered over the Masons’ one-story home when they moved to Glenview 10 years ago.
Their 8-year-old son, Lucas, grew in its shadow. Like the Sherpa people in the Himalayas or the mountain men of the Rockies, he tried to climb it once.
“I didn’t get very far,” he admitted.
Ryan Mason, Jody’s husband, tried to decorate it for Christmas one year, but couldn’t get far past the bottom branches. “We didn’t have a ladder big enough,” he said.
Crews with Brightview Landscaping used a massive crane to place the 12,000-pound tree on a flatbed 18-wheeler that took up much of the cul-de-sac in the 1300 block of – of all places – Pine Street.
It will be transported to Millennium Park on Tuesday and raised on Wednesday, where it will be decorated ahead of the city’s annual tree-lighting ceremony on Nov. 21.
The Masons met the tree’s pending departure with mixed emotions, some of which were yet to surface.
“I think I’ll be more emotional seeing it go down the road, but it’s a weird feeling,” said Ryan.
“You get attached,” observed Jody, “but seeing it in all its glory will be wonderful.”
One family member, 11-year-old Evelyn, was jubilant.
“I’m just excited to see it lit up,” she said.
Jim Williams, who has handled transportation for the city’s official Christmas tree for 16 years, says the Masons’ tree will be the largest Chicago has ever had on display.
Not the tallest, mind you: Williams recalls a 71-foot white fir that edged out the Masons’ Norway spruce, but “when you combine the height and width of the tree, it’s the biggest,” he said.
And, anyway, the spruce is a better tree for display, according to Williams: firs are more brittle and more likely to splinter and snap branches.
Williams says the massive front-yard spruce is an unusual find, since homeowners often take trees like this one down because they’re planted too close to the house, or shear off the bottom branches in order to landscape under the tree.
The tree’s mass was a motivating factor for the Masons to donate it, since its roots were creeping close to their house’s foundations.
“It was pretty close to the house,” Jody said.
“It was pretty far,” disagreed Ryan, who works as a trader, “but it’s a very big tree.”
As the great tree was laid on its side, neighbors joined the Masons to pay tribute to the leviathan of Pine Street.
Karen Murphy, who’d lived in the neighborhood 12 years, was among those who made the pilgrimage from up the street.
She said she’d miss the “beautiful” tree, which she called a “staple for the block,” but was enjoying the energy of the moment.
“It’s an exciting time and a great memory we’ll always have,” she said, standing among camera crews and city officials. “And we’ll go and see it in Chicago when it’s up.”
Even after it leaves Glenview, it will remain under the watchful eye of one Mason. Jody, an attorney, works in an office in a highrise building that overlooks Millennium Park, so she’ll have a view of her family’s spruce throughout its holiday display.
“I’ll get to look down and wave at it,” she joked.
The tree will be displayed into January, after which, like its predecessors, it will be mulched and made into wood chips for public parks.
That may not be the end of its lineage, however.
As the tree was taken down, Lucas snagged pinecones from its branches.
The family plans to bring the cones to Jody’s father, so he can replant the spruce’s seeds at his tree farm in Warsaw, Indiana – “so the tree will live on,” Jody said.
