The tree at Rockefeller Center, New York, is a Norway spruce donated by a family from East Greenbush, New York. It weighs nearly 10 tonnes and spans 14 metres in diameter. Erik Pauze, the head gardener for Rockefeller Center, has been picking the tree for the last three decades. The process starts in July.
Every year, since World War II, the mayor of Oslo has been gifting a tree to the UK, the same that adorns Trafalgar Square in London. This year’s Norway spruce is 20 metres tall, 65 years old, selected through a social media poll and named Ever Oslo. And the 27metre-tall spruce at St Peter’s Square, Vatican, is from Italy’s Bolzano province; a gift from the northern Italian municipalities of Lagundo and Ultimo.
Closer home in Calcutta, the Christmas trees are mostly Made-in-China products. There are exceptions, of course, like those put together in Dompara, also known as Ramesh Dutta Street.
There is one lane that stands out for its elaborate bamboo structures and thermocol figurines. Young boys with headphones firmly in place work on the trees through the day. During Durga Puja and Kali Puja, they work on idols and decorative pieces. In between, they travel wherever a little money and some big project will lure them — Ahmedabad, before some temple inauguration, Mumbai before Ganesh Chaturthi. They say they have worked in Russia and the UK too.
Days ahead of Christmas, they get the odd order for a Christmas tree. The kind you see at Allen Park or malls, shopfronts or even hotels.
- This Dompara tree is made of bamboo from Assam, which is sold in a wholesale market in Beleghata
- Thin strips of bamboo are bent and tied together
- This is covered by forma paper, a kind of ruled sheet sourced from College Street. It gives structure to the bamboo
- Next, a layer of smooth white paper is pasted over the forma paper. This is done with gum that the craftsmen prepare themselves. It is a mixture of fflour and tutey, which is copper sulphate
- For some of the trees, based on the height, the trunk is erected. For a 3-metre tree, the trunk would be 1-metre long
- Once the structure is ready, it is painted. Powder colour, mixed with distemper and water, is used to make the colour solution. The colours are brought from Kumartuli
- A particular kind of hay, used for making clay idols at Kumartuli, goes into making the branches.
- These are stuck onto the conical body with twines and pins
- Twines can be made of two threads, three threads or even five. They are bought from Burrabazar. “Good ones used to come from Bangladesh but since the borders closed, they are not in supply anymore.”
- The leaves and decorations for the tree are brought from Burrabazar and Howrah’s flower market. These in turn are sourced from the northeastern states, mostly Sikkim.