MORTON GROVE (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - The city’s official Christmas tree was cut down Friday morning and is going to be taken downtown in preparation for the annual holiday lighting ceremony two weeks from now.
The 55-foot Colorado blue spruce had stood in front of the one story brick house owned by Mike and Vesna Glisovic. The tree was about five-feet tall when the Glisovics moved into the home nearly 33 years ago, and until it got too tall, they used to decorate it for the holidays.
“We’ve seen so many in the neighborhood damaged by storms and getting brown and burned and drying, and, then, we were thinking, ‘just a matter of time,’ ‘cause this tree's getting taller than other ones now, and we were worried about lightning and being damaged by storms,” said Vesna Glisovic.
The Glisovics were picked out of more than 80 people who applied.
“(We’re) feeling very special, you know, and bittersweet for me because I’m a gardener and I love the tree,” Vesna Glisovic said. “In the beginning it was oh my God, oh my God, what did I do? (laughs) But then later, I say, ‘Ok, if tree has to go, it’s the best way to go.’”
She said she has great memories of the tree.
“Our boys were born here and, you know, they’d play around the tree. The kids waiting for the school bus, they’re always running around the tree. It’s part of our landscape,” Vesna Glisovic said.
She said she intends to put a new, shorter blue spruce or a Serbian spruce in place of the one that came down Friday.
The Glisovics will be in Millennium Park for the lighting of their tree November 18.
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