Rockefeller Christmas Tree donor from West Edmeston, New York, Digi Mart USA News (West Edmeston, New York): The New York woman who donated her 75-year-old Norway spruce to serve as this year’s Rockefeller Christmas Tree thought she was being pranked when the Manhattan garden team came knocking.
Rebecca Decker was thrown even further into disbelief when tree boss Erik Pauze revealed he had been eyeing the 76-foot-tall evergreen even before she bought the property it stands on. “I thought that he was absolutely joking,” Decker told the TODAY show Friday.
“I was like, ‘I live in the middle of nowhere.’ I definitely thought it was fake at first.”
The tree was uprooted from Decker’s West Edmeston yard Thursday morning. The towering spruce had been planted 75 years ago by the home’s original builder and owner, Carl Camenga, who died on Christmas Day ten years ago, according to WBNG News 12.
Decker and her three children moved into the home five years ago, and the young mother had even considered chopping down the spruce out of fear it might fall before Pauze knocked on her door. The head gardener said the size was “perfect” and revealed he had been keeping his eye on the tree since 2020.
Pauze was not the only one who thought so. Jackie and Matt McGinley, who donated the 2023 Rockefeller Christmas Tree, reached out in June to suggest he check out the Decker tree in the rural town roughly an hour from Cooperstown.
“I look at the [text], and it said, ‘Hey, take a look at this tree.’ And I look at the address, and I’m like, ‘Wait a second, I know that address.’ And sure enough, it was this tree,” Pauze said. “And you know what?
That was confirmation that this tree belongs at Rockefeller Center.”
Decker’s tree will land in Midtown Saturday, kicking off the beginning of the holiday season in New York City. It will not be lit until the Dec. 2 tree lighting, but it will be featured in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Decker, who donated the tree, said she plans to make the four-hour trip to Manhattan with her kids for the lighting event, where the tree will be adorned with 50,000 crystals and topped by a Swarovski star. It will be a bittersweet moment for the family, who count Christmas as their favorite holiday.
“I’m actually a little sad to see it leave now,” Decker said. “Now I don’t really know how the yard’s going to look without it.
It’s definitely going to be a conversation for a little while.”
