The biggest Christmas tree in the world

Let’s face it, the Christmas season is well and truly upon us. Whether you’re a self-styled Scrooge or bordering on Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf, there’s no escaping its joyous clutches, particularly in Italy.

The country’s festive season sprung into action at the beginning of December, largely because of the Catholic celebration the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (or l’immacolata), which in case you’re wondering, celebrates Mary’s conception without sin.

The Vatican lit up its €60,000 Christmas tree, the Cinque Terre town of Manarola turned into an illuminated nativity scene, and families across the country (mine included) decorated their Christmas trees.

But none of those decorations, impressive as they are, could quite hold a candle up to the world’s largest Christmas tree, which can be found in the hilly, medieval Umbrian town of Gubbio.

“I started helping out with the tree when I was 11 years old after seeing my father do it,” Francesco Constantini, now 40, tells me.

“It is a bond between me and him as well as to the city of Gubbio. Without the tree, Christmas in Gubbio would not be the same. It brings joy and is a sign of belonging.”

The behemoth, which was illuminated on December 7, sits on the slopes of nearby Mount Ingino towering over 650 metres high. Of course it’s not a real tree; it is composed of 950 lights shaped to look like a Christmas tree – 300 green lights create the outline, 400 multicoloured lights decorate the “tree” and 250 lights form a star at the top.

It’s as big a deal nationally as it is in size, especially for the locals. In 1991 it was titled by the Guinness Book of Records as being the largest tree in the world, a feat they are still proud of 33 years later.

Francesco just so happens to be part of a group of volunteers named Albero di Natale più grande del mondo (Biggest Christmas tree in the world), who task themselves with setting up the spectacle. The committee was first assembled in 1992, 11 years after the tree was first lit back in 1981.

Since its inception, the group of around 70 people heads up the slope each year, with wires and lights in hand.

“The tree is assembled by working on Sunday mornings starting from the beginning of September,” Francesco continues. All the blood, sweat and tears the group puts into their job, seems to have paid off. Forget only going global: news of the tree also reached space.

In 2017 the Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli lit the tree by sending a signal from the International Space Station where he had been living and working since July of that year.

“As beautiful as it is being in space, this evening I would have liked to have been there with you to enjoy the show,” Nespoli said via video recording at the annual lighting ceremony .

In 2014 the tree was switched on by Pope Francis. This year it was lit up by Italian actors Davide Calabrese and Fabio Vagnarelli. Perhaps not as big a deal as the Pope, but still, excitement still hung in the air – children asked their parents continuously when it was going to happen (the answer was 5.30pm), and groups of friends gathered eagerly in the town’s piazza to watch it turn on. The city’s flag wavers (Sbandieratori della Città di Gubbio) put on a parade to get the crowd going.

A friendly stranger from Gubbio asked if it was my first time here (which it was) and said she was proud that hundreds of people from all over Italy had travelled to her city.

With true Christmas cheer, everyone was in good spirits, which only intensified when the lights went on. Scores of fireworks exploded behind the mountain (as though the world’s biggest Christmas tree needed to be highlighted) and people clapped and hurrahed.

However, there were no claps, cheers or fireworks when I put up my six-foot, plastic Christmas tree from Amazon the next day – but I was happy in the knowledge that it would take me at most an hour to take down.