Editing Macy's Great Tree (section)

==The original tree==
Each year through 2012, the tree itself was an [[eastern white pine]], usually around {{convert|65|-|75|ft|m|0}} tall, and contained several miles of electrical wiring, thousands of stringed lights, hundreds of basketball-sized ornaments and [[Disco ball|mirror ball]]s, and dozens of strobe lights for effect.  It also had a huge lighted [[tree topper]] seven feet (two meters) in diameter, previously a [[snowflake]], and now a color-changing [[LED]] star since becoming Macy's.  For 2009, it also had 125 snowflake ornaments and 125 metallic red Macy's stars, similar to the décor used inside its stores for the [[Christmas shopping season]].  It required hundreds of gallons of water (well over a thousand liters) each day (depending on the weather and humidity), along with bottles of aspirin to keep the tree fresh (though it is unclear how effective aspirin actually is).  It was secured so as to withstand [[wind]] gusts of up to {{convert|90|mph|km/h}}.

The tree was selected over a year before it was actually intended to be cut and used, so that it could be used as the backup should something happen to the tree that was previously selected.  It was generally picked from somewhere in [[north Georgia]].  The 2009 tree was planted in late 1983 after being used indoors as a family's first Christmas tree.