ENID, Oklahoma — Each year, just after Thanksgiving, it feels like the world shifts into a winter wonderland in some places.
"But I feel like with hearing the music of the ice rink, and coming down to see the tree and all the smaller trees lit around it, it just reminds me of being a kid again," said Nicole Winfield, the project coordinator of 'The One.'
With joy in the air, the season kicks into full gear. According to Kyle Williams and his family, they have been Christmas connoisseurs for as long as they can remember.
"I've always had a fascination with lights, beautiful lights I can't describe it but I just love lights," Williams said. "I love to carol, I can't sing but I love to carol and I love my Carol, too."
In 2021 they took their expertise one step further.
"We just started out and we were looking around the internet on the largest Christmas trees in the world. And we kept seeing them in different places in the world and the country and California and all like that and we said to ourselves, we can do that we can bring one of those trees to Enid, Oklahoma," Williams said.
This year, as Winfield explains, Enid, Oklahoma, has made history.
"We researched and found a wonderful company out of California that puts up these kinds of trees. Although this, they have been around for 50 years, this was the tallest tree in their history they've ever put up," Williams said.
The world's tallest fresh-cut Christmas tree now stands in the center of this quaint town. Think of how tall a telephone pole is; this tree, standing at 140 feet, is about four times as tall. If we go back into history, the Christmas tree has meaning behind it.
"The tree represents many things. The green for everlasting life, the lights for the light of the world," Williams said.
It's believed evergreens were widely used in pagan cultures as a symbol of eternal and renewing life. In today's day and age, other religions have adopted holiday trees into their own homes.
They use them as a place to display their own cultures and capture their holiday spirit.
"It's for absolutely anybody, for anybody to come enjoy of any faith and any ethnicity," Winfield said.
And to pull it all off, it took more of an effort than some would imagine.
"It doesn't look like this, it's not a beautiful tree it's a little bit like a Charlie Brown tree. Along with the tree comes two semis full of branches and that's what they do they plug the tree to fill it out," said Williams and his wife Carol.
The community stepped up to make it a reality.
"How do you get 140 foot Christmas tree to Oklahoma?" Winfield said.
"We've got some great wind companies here in Oklahoma, wind turbine companies and companies who haul these big blades and we contacted one of our local ones there and they just came on right there and said we'll go get the tree," Winfield said.
That community support comes full circle once the holiday season comes to an end.
"This tree was not a tree that we went and cut down just for the beauty of it. This was a tree that was already marked for lumber," Winfield said. "Last year, we had the tree milled and donated as lumber for habitat for humanity and this year, we plan to give other organizations part of the tree as well."
With nearly 20,000 lights and 10,000 ornaments bringing this historic tree to life, those in Enid are sending their holiday cheer near and far to people of every religion and every culture.
