2025 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in NYC – Sneak Peek at This Year’s Lighting
The annual Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting Ceremony takes place on Wednesday, December 3, 2025, with country music star Reba McEntire hosting and performing.
This year’s 2025 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is a true native New Yorker, a 75-foot-tall Norway spruce from East Greenbush, New York, and like so many of us, it comes with a story deeply rooted in family and tradition. The tree was donated by the Russ family, who cared for it on their property for more than 60 years in upstate New York.
Psst… Check Out the Rink at Rockefeller Center
New ‘Meet the Tree’ Tickets
Before the tree lights up, families can kick things off early at the brand-new “Meet the Tree” event on Saturday, November 8. From 10 am to 3 pm, Rockefeller Plaza turns into a mini winter workshop in partnership with FAO Schwarz and Peanuts, complete with coloring stations, Build-A-Bear’s Make-Your-Own Snoopy, letters to Santa, and a chance to meet Snoopy in person. It’s free to attend (just sign up ahead of time), and kids with a Top of the Rock ticket get to skip the line for the workshop.
Starting December 4, special Top of the Rock tickets will be available. With these tickets, visitors can get private access to a viewing area beneath the tree. As always, anyone can visit the tree for free while it remains at Rockefeller Center.
The 75-ft tree weighs close to 11 tons and will be lit by over 50,000 multi-colored LED lights. It will be topped by a three-dimensional Swarovski star that weighs about 900 pounds and has 70 spikes covered in 3 million crystals.
The 2025 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree will be lit daily from 5 am to midnight. On Christmas Eve, it will stay lit for 24 hours. If you can’t make it before Christmas, no worries – the tree will be on display until mid-January.
For more information, visit rockefellercenter.com.
Here at New York Family, we could not love the holidays more and that’s why we’ve created A Very Merry New York Family Holiday Guide! We’ve got everything you need to make 2025 your family’s best holiday ever: Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa events, holiday light shows, gift guide, holiday shopping ideas, books, movies, elf ideas and so much more!!
