A towering Norway spruce rolled into downtown Fort Worth Friday morning, hauled in from Michigan to anchor this year's holiday display at Sundance Square. Crews began hoisting the tree into place almost immediately, kicking off what organizers describe as several weeks of decorating before the holiday display lights up next month.
According to FOX 4 News Dallas-Fort Worth, the tree is an 84-foot-tall Norway spruce that traveled more than 1,200 miles from Michigan to North Texas. That account, drawing on a news release from Sundance Square along with FOX 4 crews on the scene, says the spruce is taller than New York's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree by eight feet. A separate report on the tree's Michigan origins tells a slightly different story: the tree's owner, John Kelly, estimated it at closer to 75 to 80 feet and said it was headed roughly 1,000 miles south to the Lone Star State, according to upnorthlive.com.
A Six-Decade Tree Makes a Long Haul South
Kelly estimated the tree had been growing for about six decades, based on counting its rings, per the Michigan outlet's report. Once cut, the spruce — what the station called “what was once John's pine” — was loaded onto a 90-foot trailer and sent south toward Fort Worth.
Once the tree reached Sundance Square, crews got to work installing it in its downtown plaza home. Local artists are also hand-painting dozens of giant ornaments for the tree, continuing a tradition Sundance Square has kept alive for the past five years, inviting both emerging and established North Texas creatives to contribute pieces as a way to build community, according to the Fort Worth Report.
Sundance Square's Tree Has Grown Over Time, but Is Shorter This Year
Fort Worth's Sundance Square tree has generally grown over the past several years, though this year's 84-foot display is shorter than last year's 86-foot tree. The display started at 55 feet in 2021, grew to 65 feet in 2022, reached 80 feet in 2023 and stood at 82 feet in 2024, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Last year's tree was an 86-foot Norway spruce, reported at the time as 11 feet taller than that year's tree at Rockefeller Center, per the Fort Worth Report's account.
The tradition itself dates back decades. The Fort Worth City Council approved moving the tree display to Sundance Square in 1999, and Sundance Square took over managing the annual project in 2004, the Star-Telegram reports. This year's tree, organizers say, is the tallest live Christmas tree in Texas.
Lighting Ceremony Set for December 1, With a Live Performance
The tree lighting ceremony is set for December 1, 2026, with Sundance Square's event listing noting the night will include a special guest performance from Michael Martin Murphy as part of the 80th annual community tree lighting. Fort Worth's tourism site lists the celebration with a Christmas concert ahead of the lighting itself, according to fortworth.com. The City of Fort Worth will spend the weeks leading up to the event decorating the tree in full before the plaza's big night.
Fort Worth's spruce will have company on the national tree-lighting calendar. Rockefeller Center's own Norway spruce, standing 76 feet tall and weighing 11 tons this year, is set for its own lighting ceremony on December 2, 2026, according to TODAY. For Fort Worth, though, the focus stays close to home, with downtown crews turning a Michigan spruce into the centerpiece of another holiday season in Sundance Square.
