The giant Christmas tree in Montreal's Quartier des Spectacles was supposed to rival the one in New York's Rockefeller Centre. Instead, many are calling it less than spectacular — and that's putting it charitably.
The tree, funded in part by Canadian Tire and festooned with Canadian Tire tree ornaments, was officially launched on Friday at the corner of Ste. Catherine and Jeanne-Mance streets. It's tall, but very thin, and the top is kind of flat.
On social media, people haven't been very kind, saying the tree is shabby-looking. It has even drawn comparisons to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree — without a Linus around to give it a little love.
Phillippe Pelletier with the group Sapin MTL — which picked out and installed the tree — is defending it, and saying there can't be any real comparisons made its legendary New York City counterpart.
"We're super glad with what we've accomplished here," Pelletier told CJAD. "Finding a tree of that size is super hard in Quebec, and those perfect trees you have, like, in Rockefeller Centre, don't exist in Quebec. This is a unique and natural Quebec tree."
Peltier says he's surprised at the negative feedback he's received for it.
"We're totally surprised," he says. "When something goes out of the box, people have difficulty to accept it, and people take pleasure to criticize it, but I think the more you look at the tree, you realize that maybe this tree is as unique as you are, and as Montreal is."
He points out, too, that he only had four days, and a budget of $2,500, to put it all together — a small fraction of the time and money devoted to setting up the Rockefeller Centre tree.