Wednesday afternoon, students looked on with cheerful eyes as this year’s tree for the annual TCU Christmas Tree Lighting rolled into the Campus Commons.

This time-honored tradition consistently draws in thousands from the TCU community. Aside from the tree lighting itself, festivities include refreshments, photo ops with Super Frog Santa, a concert performance, and fireworks presentation.

The process of finding the perfect tree involves a lot of early planning as well as several hands on deck.

TCU contracted Fifth Avenue Greenhouses, a DFW based agricultural company, to find the perfect tree for the event.

Bruce Brooks, the interiorscape manager at the company and leader of the tree search project, said the process of finding the tree starts months in advance. In early June, he sent a scouting crew up to Michigan, a state known for having the best Christmas tree varieties.

The ideal tree isn’t found in the forest, but in places like residential neighborhoods.

In the case of this year’s tree, an apartment complex.

After the crew scouted the landscape and found the tree of choice, negotiating began. After the two parties agreed on a final price, pick-up was scheduled.

Then, it was dropped off at TCU’s brick plaza by the commons for decoration in preparation for lighting.

The annual tree lighting will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 28, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.