NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — City workers spent the morning on Monday installing this year's Christmas trees.
"We love this," Wire and Alarm Inspector Mitchell Meranti said. "Everybody looks forward to it."
The tree closest to city hall is a Blue Spruce donated by the Mancini Family.
Kathy Mancini said the tree has been an important part of their lives for over 30 years. She said her daughter Katie made her first communion in 1993 and all she wanted for her first communion gift was a pine tree sapling to plant
"My husband's uncle Henry Dean went out into the woods and came home with the tiniest sapling I have ever seen," Mancini said. "They planted it and that is the tree that we just donated to the city."
She said the tree is well over 40 feet.
"We always decorated it at Christmas time until we couldn't, and it has been just such a sentimental tree for us…it just brought so much joy to this neighborhood," she said. "But I know I am not going to be here forever. We talked it over with our daughter…and we felt what better way to memorialize it…we wanted to donate it to the city for everyone to enjoy because it is such a beautiful tree."
She praised the city workers and said they cut her a slab from the tree. They plan to place photos of their daughter with the tree as well as a photo of the tree at city hall as a gift.
The monument tree was donated by Juan Bolte. Meranti thought it was a double balsam.
"If you look at the branches on a single balsam, they are flatter. Double balsam has more of a rounded look to it," Meranti said.
Meranti said that although installing the tree was easy, getting it to downtown North Adams was a challenge.
"It's the first time we've had to unhook the truck from the trailer. I had to get in position first with the bucket to get the harness on," he said. "Then we had to back the trailer in. In very tight quarters, we had to back the trailer in and unhook that. Then we drove the crane in and got him set up. Then we reversed the whole operation."
"It went in very smoothly, and it is a beautiful tree."
Once both trees are secure, Meranti will spend the time between now and Thanksgiving stringing the lights.
This story will be updated with more information on the trees.
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