If you went to Crown Center last Friday to see the Mayor’s Christmas Tree, you’d have seen something strange: a towering trunk fully bare, save for a cowlick of branches at the top. The tree’s piney limbs sat in heaps on the square.
Charlie Brown didn’t pick the tree this year—it’s just still getting dressed. The Mayor’s Christmas Tree was picked in Oregon, shaved of most of its limbs for ease of transport, and trucked to Kansas City looking like a giant stalk of asparagus. A team hoisted it up in Crown Center Square soon after and rigged it with wiring. That’s when we showed up, confused, and asked questions.
Here’s what’s next (if everything goes according to schedule): a team will attach brackets to the trunk and screw the limbs back into the tree so it looks as full as can be. Then on Wednesday, they’ll start adding the lights and ornaments.
Anne Deuschle, the marketing director for Crown Center, says the lights will be done in a new way this year.
“We will have a light show in addition to our regular lights,” says Deuschle. “It will play nine times throughout the course of the weekend during the Hallmark Christmas Experience.” She was tight-lipped about the show’s features, but she says each light can be programmed individually.
The Hallmark Christmas Experience, a new attraction this year, runs from November 29 to December 22. The tree will come on for the first time on opening day, which Deuschle says will feature Santa Claus, the mayor (it’s his tree, after all), and stars of Hallmark Christmas movies.
In addition to the yearly activities, such as skating on the Ice Terrace and shopping the Hallmarket, the Hallmark Christmas experience will feature actor panels, writing workshop, “reindeer games,” and more.