Fifty workers and 700 branches are just part of Galleria Dallas’ towering Christmas tree
With the arrival of November, Galleria Dallas ushers in the season with lights, music and a tree that stops shoppers in their tracks. It’s the kind of sight that instantly puts you in the holiday spirit.
Skaters glide across the ice, Christmas songs echo through the building and in the center of it all stands a 95-foot marvel: the tallest indoor Christmas tree in the United States. But behind the shimmering lights and picture-perfect moments lies months of planning, a team of 50 workers and an extraordinary amount of technical precision.
Building A Five-Ton Holiday Icon
The tradition began in 1984, just two years after Galleria Dallas opened, and the tree quickly became its signature attraction. Today, it remains one of the most photographed holiday displays in the world. Constructing it, however, is no small feat.
According to General Manager Angie Freed, it takes a crew of 50 “of Santa’s helpers” five full days to complete the tree. The process involves assembling the five-ton steel frame, locating power sources buried beneath the ice and hand-fluffing and testing all 700 branches — each the size of a small Christmas tree — after more than 14,000 hours of off-site work hand-stitching their twigs.
Photo: Galleria Dallas
“One of the most challenging parts of the installation is something unique to Galleria Dallas,” Freed tells Local Profile. “Locating and connecting to the power buried underneath the ice.”
When the season ends, the entire structure is disassembled, labeled and packed away into more than 100 crates stored beneath the rink year-round.
Behind The Scenes Of The Sparkle
Creating the perfect holiday experience requires more than engineering skill; it demands imagination. Each year, a special team of programmers designs the lighting animations, syncing thousands of LEDs to holiday music for the daily Illumination Celebration, which runs at noon, 2, 4 and 6 p.m. beginning Black Friday.
“The tree has become a signature image of the shopping center and is one of the most photographed Christmas trees in the world,” Freed says.
Photo: Galleria Dallas
Beyond the tree, the entire center dazzles with festive touches: 44 palm trees wrapped in 50,000 lights, ten additional Christmas trees adorned with 40,000 more and 30 trees along the Dallas North Tollway glowing in 100,000 red LEDs.
Where Magic Meets Tradition
For Freed, the most rewarding moments are the quiet ones. “It’s the squeal of a three-year-old child seeing the tree for the first time, or a family assembling to take a photo in front of the tree year after year,” she says.
More people skate around the Galleria’s tree each season than around Rockefeller Center’s, and countless proposals happen beneath its glowing star. For Dallas, this towering tree is more than a decoration. This icon is a tradition, a destination and a reminder of the magic that happens when craftsmanship meets holiday spirit.
The Tradition Of The Grand Tree Lighting
While the tree itself is breathtaking, its debut is what draws the biggest crowds. The Grand Tree Lightings, set for Black Friday and the first two weekends of December, blend holiday pageantry with athleticism. Olympic and national champion skaters like Ashley Cain, Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker, Ryan Bradley and Youth Olympic Champion Jacob Sanchez perform alongside nearly 100 young skaters from the Galleria’s Ice Skating Center.
Photo: Galleria Dallas
And then comes Missile Toes, the backflipping Santa who shoots fireworks from his skates. The pyrotechnic finale, a fixture since 1993, lights up the atrium in a display that requires special engineering and even a custom flame-retardant Santa suit developed over five years.
A Technological Upgrade
This year’s tree features a lighting upgrade from Twinkly, an Italian company best known for designing the illuminated tree at the Vatican. The system’s 200,000 programmable LED lights allow for animated, immersive displays — dancing reindeer, floating candy canes, Santa Claus and other holiday scenes that appear to move across the tree’s surface.
At the very top sits a 10-foot, 100-pound LED star, the first of its kind in the country, lifted into place with a massive crane and bolted into the steel frame before the branches are added.
Photo: Galleria Dallas
“The holiday season has always been our time to shine at Galleria Dallas,” Freed says. “The beautiful handiwork and visually stunning technology of the tree and its location on the ice will allow visitors to truly skate into the holidays.”
For a full list of holiday events at Galleria Dallas, visit www.galleriadallas.com/holiday.
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