HAMILTON, N.J. (AP) -- Christmas at New York City's Rockefeller Center will feature a tree from western New Jersey that its owners call a "miracle.''
PHOTO GALLERY: See The Star That Will Top The Tree
Workers cut down the 72-foot tall Norway spruce at the home of the Varanyak family in Hamilton, near a tree nursery that they own.
The 8-ton tree will be erected over the ice rink on Friday.
Bill Varanyak says the tree was planted near the family home after his parents used it as their first Christmas tree in 1931.
He says it's ``the miracle tree'' because his late mother always said it would one day be on display at Rockefeller Center.
His brother, Bob, says they recently saw a blue bird in the tree and they believe the bird was their mother guarding it.
While the first official lighting was in 1933, the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was put up two years earlier by workers helping to build the complex during the Depression.
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