Rebecca Decker’s 75-year-old Norway spruce was uprooted from her West Edmeston yard on Thursday morning to become this year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. The tree will reach Midtown on Saturday, then wait there until the Dec. 2 tree lighting and an appearance in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Decker donated the 76-foot-tall tree after Erik Pauze had been watching it since 2020. The spruce was planted 75 years ago by Carl Camenga, who died on Christmas Day ten years ago, and Decker said she moved into the home with her three children five years ago.
Rebecca Decker and West Edmeston
Decker said Pauze’s request caught her off guard. “I thought that he was absolutely joking,” she said, adding, “I was like, ‘I live in the middle of nowhere.’ I definitely thought it was fake at first.”
Her reaction changed after Jackie and Matt McGinley reached out in June and suggested Pauze look at the tree. Pauze said he saw the address, recognized it, and realized it matched the spruce in Decker’s yard. “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,” he said.
Erik Pauze and the spruce
Pauze called the tree “perfect” because of its size. After he identified the address, he said, “And you know what? That was confirmation that this tree belongs at Rockefeller Center.”
The tree’s path now moves from a private yard to a public holiday centerpiece in New York City. Decker said she plans to make the four-hour trip to Manhattan with her children for the lighting, and she added that leaving the tree behind already feels personal: “I’m actually a little sad to see it leave now.”
Midtown on Saturday
When the spruce is gone, the yard will look different in a way Decker already notices. “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,” she said.
The tree will be decorated with 50,000 crystals and topped by a Swarovski star before the Dec. 2 tree lighting. For Decker, the change is immediate: a tree that stood for 75 years in West Edmeston is now headed for Rockefeller Center, where it will take on a much larger public role.
