Workers carefully hoist Rockefeller Center's Norwegian Spruce Christmas tree into place as it arrives in NYC ahead of the lighting ceremony

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has arrived, signaling the start of the 2023 festive season. 

Arborists carefully erected the 12-ton Norwegian Spruce in the midtown tourist trap Saturday morning ahead of the lighting up ceremony later this month. 

A gaggle of excited passers-by watched as workers used heavy-duty ropes and metal rods to hoist the ginormous shrub. 

The evergreen was donated by a family from Vestal and it made a 200-mile journey from the upstate NY town before ascending in the Big Apple. 

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has arrived, signaling the start of the 2023 festive season

Arborists carefully erected the 12-ton Norwegian Spruce in the midtown Manhattan tourist trap Saturday morning ahead of a lighting ceremony later this month

It was was cut down Thursday morning and loaded onto the back of a flatbed truck for its trip to the Manhattan holiday hotspot. 

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in 2022 

Known for its mesmerizing display of glittering fairy lights, it will soon be adorned with a five-mile string of more than 50,000 multi-colored LEDs.

Decorators will complete the festive dressing with the signature Swarovski star sporting three million crystals which has topped Rockefeller Center trees since 2004. 

Huge crowds are expected to flock to the plaza for lighting ceremony on Wednesday November 29, when the conifer comes to life.  

From then on the tree will light up every day from 5am until midnight until January 13 - with the exception of Christmas Day when it's illuminated for 24 hours. 

Donated by the McGinley family, the tree was selected by Erik Pauze, 55, the head gardener for Rockefeller Center, who has worked at the site since starting out as a college student intern in 1988.

Known for its mesmerizing display of glittering fairy lights, the tree will soon be adorned with a five-mile string of more than 50,000 multi-colored LEDs

The iconic tree was wrapped for transport and craned onto a flatbed truck on Thursday 

Pauze showed up at the McGinley household on Murray Hill Road one year ago and asked if they would be interested in offering their 12-ton tree, 12 News reported. 

'It was a complete surprise,' Jackie McGinley told the outlet. 'But probably the best surprise of our lives. 

'My family has experienced quite a bit of loss in our lives and what we know is after loss it's memories that stay with people. 

'We are really happy that people will get go to that tree or come to our home and make memories because they will carry that forever.' 

Norwegian Spruces are fast-growing evergreen trees that can grow up to 180 feet tall and have an average trunk diameter of around 1.5 meters. 

The species is used as the main Christmas tree in several countries around the world, and they can cost anywhere from $40 to $1,000 for a typical house-appropriate size decoration. 

The McGinley family donated the tree. (They are pictured outside the Rockefeller Center on Saturday)

A gaggle of excited passers-by watched as workers used heavy-duty ropes and metal rods the hoist the ginormous shrub

The evergreen was donated by a family from Vestal and it made a 200-mile journey from the upstate NY town before descending on the Big Apple

Online estimates suggest that the show-stopping Rockefeller tree could cost more than $73,000 - but the McGinleys donated theirs to the center for free. 

It sits outside the $1.2 billion Rockefeller Center - a large complex consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres between 48th Street and 51st Street.

The tree will be taken down in January and milled into lumber, which since 2007 has been donated to Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit NGO based in Georgia that helps people to construct, rehabilitate and preserve homes.