Englewood's towering Christmas tree will be lit following the “Ringing in the Holidays” concert on Dec. 1, with the concert by Englewood Schools students starting at 3:30 p.m. and the tree lighting taking place around 5:30.

The 30-foot artificial tree is assembled limb by limb and about 16,000 lights are attached along with hundreds of ornaments. The tree looks even taller because it is mounted atop the seasonally idled fountain that stands in the area surrounded by the traffic circle in front of city hall, off the intersection of Englewood Parkway and Inca Street.

Englewood's tree lighting ceremony history is believed to date back to the days of the Cinderella City mall, a remnant of which serves as city hall.

In the 1960s, Cinderella City was the largest enclosed shopping mall west of the Mississippi River and mall merchants sponsored a parade to kick off the holiday season and bring Santa to the mall.

The parade was later taken over by the city before sputtering out of existence in the late 1990s, but it was reborn around 2004 when it was resumed by the Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce. The chamber is not staging a parade this year.

But even without a parade, the city is continuing the holiday tradition with the concert and tree lighting.