Gust of Christmas Passed, Toppled Nashville's Tannenbaum

NASHVILLE, TN -- A boreal bluster bah-humbugged Metro's official Christmas tree to an early meeting with the chipper Saturday.

The cold front that brought days of pre-Christmas rain to the Midstate passed through Nashville Saturday morning and behind it came cold air and a strong shift of the winds to the north. Gusts as high as 30 mph roared through the city and if the rain, as French statesman Talleyrand quipped, is counter-revolutionary, then the wind must be a soldier in the War on Christmas.

The 30-foot Norway spruce donated by an Inglewood family to serve as the centerpiece of the holiday display at Public Square Park was sent splaying to the ground like so many Lower Broadway holiday revelers too full of the Christmas spirit.

Adorned with more than a half-million LED Christmas lights, the tree suffered some damage and, in the opinion of Metro Public Works, righting the tree would take too much time and effort and would likely not get finished in time for Christmas anyway. Thus, the tree was stripped and met its maker in the mulcher. So to speak.

Mayor Megan Barry took to Twitter to honor the late tannenbaum and reminded Nashvillians that the Square tree's twin, donated by the same family, still stood proudly at Centennial Park.

Image via Shutterstock