That’s when the lights will switched on the 32nd annual CHML Christmas Tree of Hope in Gore Park.

Until a few days ago, the 18- metre (60-foot) blue spruce that now towers above the downtown park, sat on the front lawn of Mr. Gillespie’s home on Concession Street near East 43rd.

Mr. Gillespie said the tree was just a seedling when his father Robert Gillespie planted it at the north-west corner of what was then his childhood home around 1965. It was one of many trees his father planted around the property. Mr. Gillespie later purchased the home from his parents’ estate.

As a boy Mr. Gillespie recalled watching the tree grow tall and serve as a home for cardinals and as shade for the family cat.

With a diameter of about six metres (21 feet), the tree had become a concern. It was encroaching on the neighbouring property and was a constant threat to overhead telephone lines.

“It just has outgrown its space,” Mr. Gillespie said.

About a year ago Mr. Gillespie approached the city to see if they wanted his blue spruce for a Christmas tree.

“I just thought it would look so good at Gore Park,” said Mr. Gillespie, a retired mechanical technologist, who worked at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters for 29 years. “As long as a lot of people can see it, that’s the main thing.”

City officials dropped by to check out the tree earlier this year and decided it would be perfect for the annual Tree of Hope campaign, a well-known Hamilton fundraiser. Each year the city investigates potential Christmas trees for city hall and for use by CHML resulting from calls to the municipality, such as Mr. Gillespie’s, or in response to public service announcements.

Public works crews removed the tree from Mr. Gillespie’s front lawn and trucked it to Gore Park where it will remain until the second week of January when it will be taken down and cut up for mulch to be used in city parks and flower beds.

Ramona Maharaj, Hamilton’s downtown program co-ordinator, said CHML covers the cost of moving the tree.

Money raised through the Tree of Hope goes to the CHML Children’s Fund.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gillespie noted there are still plenty of trees on his property for birds to nest in and he expects city crews to drop by again in the spring to grind up the roots left behind.

He expects to plant some flowers in the spot where the blue spruce once stood and in the future he may plant a seedling there, just like his dad did some 43 years ago.