Monday, November 25, 2013

White House Christmas Tree a PA Native

excerpt from a press release:

This year’s White House Christmas Tree, which will be on display in the Blue Room, is an 18.5-foot Douglas Fir grown by Chris Botek, a second generation Christmas Tree Farmer from Crystal Spring Tree Farm in Lehighton, PA.  Botek is the National Christmas Tree contest’s 2010 champion and his parents, Francis and Margaret, were the 2006 contest champions.
Wyckoff’s Christmas Tree Farm in Belvidere, NJ has won the New Jersey state Christmas tree competition nine times, and this is the first year that the farm has won NCTA’s contest. The Wyckoff farm has been family owned for six generations, since 1839, and this year four trees from the farm will be featured throughout the White House during the holiday season.

One quick historical note -- the Wyckoff family settled in New York (then New Amsterdam) in the 1600's.  [Full disclosure: my grandfather's grandmother was a Wyckoff.]

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