Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree year. The tree, usually a Norway spruce tall, has been a national tradition each year since 1933. The 2018 Christmas Tree Lighting took place on November 28, 2018; the tree will remain on display until January 7, 2019. Trees are traditionally donated to Rockefeller Center, which in turn donates the lumber after display. Until his death in 2009, the late David Murbach, Manager of the Gardens Division of Rockefeller Center, scouted for the desired tree in upstate New York and surrounding states, and even Ottawa in Ontario, Canada. Erik Pauzé, Head Gardener at Rockefeller Center, looks for each year's Rockefeller
Christmas tree of the oldest references to the Christmas tree: "Note on how to put the Christmas branch, "scilicet": On the Christmas eve, you will look for a large Branch of green laurel, and you shall reap many red oranges, and place them on the branches that come of the laurel, specifically as you have seen, and in every orange you shall put a candle, and hang the Branch by a rope in the pole, which shall be by the candle of the "altar-mor"." The relevance of ancient pre-Christian customs to the 16th-century German initiation of the Christmas tree custom is disputed.