NPR

Is This The Saddest Christmas Tree In The World?

It's impossible to miss: Threadbare and thinly patched in pine needles, the tree towers over one of Rome's busiest plazas — but appears to have seen better days.
Behold Rome's beleaguered <em>Spelacchio</em>. Skinny, patchy and now, dead.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Pluck just about any Christmas carol off FM radio, and you've got a decent shot it'll be lauding the merits of a tree — a glorious yuletide pine with , say, or with happy campers . In other words, carolers

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