It’s beginning to look like Christmas in Uptown Waterloo now that the city has safely secured its holiday tree for the public square. The tree spent the last two decades in front of Hanni Gottfried’s home on Crestwood Avenue in Kitchener. She felt it was time to let the blue spruce go. “I think it’s a little too big now and I need to get rid of it,” she explained as crews prepared to remove the tree on Tuesday morning. So, how did the tree end up in Waterloo? “I tried the City of Kitchener and then I phoned Waterloo, and Waterloo liked it,” Gottfried explained. Her family was delighted the city decided to put it on display. “It’s going to be a nice Christmas tree. I think everybody is going to like it,” Gottfried said. The blue spruce fit the bill, according to Derek Brick, Waterloo’s manager of forestry. “It [was] the perfect tree,” he said. “Shape, form, everything like that.” The logistics of moving the approximately 2,100 lbs. tree, however, was challenging. “We’ve got some hydro wires behind us, so pull it up over top of the hydro wires, get it onto the tagalong trailer, and then crews will navigate their way to uptown,” explained Brick ahead of the move. “Once we get to Uptown, it’s very tight there so we have to kind of navigate with the LRT and all the different pieces of the puzzle there.” The blue spruce slowly made its way to Waterloo Square without a hitch, much to the delight of residents who eagerly watched its arrival. “I think it’s very exciting to actually see it go up because it just gets [us] in the spirit of Christmas,” said one. The crew was also satisfied with their work. “It kicks off the Christmas season, the holiday season in Uptown Waterloo, so it’s a lot of fun for us,” Brick said. Now that the tree has been installed, Christmas and holiday enthusiasts will have to wait until December 5th for the official tree lighting ceremony.
