The Christmas Tree by Jill; Julie; Weber Salamon Page A

of myself. Let me tell you who I am and how I found myself in tears at an event that had become routine for me long ago.
    I am the chief gardener at Rockefeller Center, though I think of myself as a magician of sorts. It’s up to me to conjure up a Christmas tree every year—a tree so grand, so impressive—so magical—that it can stop New Yorkers in their tracks. If you’ve ever seen people flying around Manhattan, especially at Christmas, you can appreciate why I always get a little nervous this time of year.
    It’s enough to make you dread the season. We’ve had so many perfect trees perfection has become the norm. When you get 100 out of 100 every year you get no praise for getting 100 again, only complaints if you don’t.
    What is perfection?
    It’s hard to describe exactly what makes the perfect Christmas tree. The physical requirements are straightforward enough. The tree must stand tall and straight. Its branches must be thick and graceful, and they must point upward, giving the impression that they are reaching to the sky. They also have to be flexible, since they are tied down during the long journey to New York City.
    But the trees that are finally selected need something more than height, thickness and suppleness—even more than mere beauty. And that’s where I come in. I’m not an exceptional fellow in most ways, but I do have this gift. I can see if a tree has character, a spirit that outshines the ornaments and tinsel and lights—if its beauty comes from the inside and not just the outside.
    I don’t know how to put it any other way. I’ve often wished I had the same gift with people.
    Walk through any park and you’ll be able to find them, if you look for the right signs. In summer, the grass around their trunks will be flattened and brown because so many people have sat there. In winter, you feel warmer just looking at them; the wind seems to stop when it comes their way. They are contradictory, these trees: gigantic and sturdy, yet gentle and comforting. It has something to do with the way they hold their branches.
    We’ve had a white spruce now and again over the years and there were a couple of Douglas firs, but that was before my time. Usually, though, we’ve had our best luck with Norway spruces. They’re nice and green, not like the Colorado spruces, which have a blue tint. Sometimes when I’m asked why so many of the Christmas trees have been Norway spruces I’ll make up a story about how they’ve got the right spirit because they grow so close to the North Pole. People like that.
    But the real reason isn’t quite so romantic. The real reason is that Norway spruces are easy to find. And they grow pretty fast, for an evergreen tree.
    You wouldn’t catch me planting them, though. They don’t live all that long. They can start getting ragged and broken when they’re as young as thirty, just when other trees are hitting their stride. Although that hasn’t seemed to bother anyone else. Norway spruces were brought here by the Germanic people of Northern Europe when they settled the Northeast, maybe for sentimental reasons. And people have been planting them ever since.
    Even so, the search for the Christmas tree can take a long time. I start looking for next year’s tree before this year’s tree is lit. I never want to relive the year we didn’t find the tree until September. That might not seem late at all, but Christmas is a very big deal at Rockefeller Center. The preparations alone are enormous. We have these super-giant ornaments that take a week each to install, not to mention the mountains of pinecones and bells we put up all over the place, the giant toy soldiers, the poinsettias. You can get lost in Christmas.
    I have people scouting for me in all the states around New York, even as far as Canada. They call me when they think they’ve found the tree and after they’ve checked