Look up this holiday season. Way up. Topping out at 64 feet, nearly six stories high, it’s the tallest Christmas tree in Pacific Beach. Actually, the Christmas tree is only 6-feet tall. But it’s perched atop a flag pole that towers 58 feet into the air. At night, the twinkling tree lights can be seen for miles around. It looks like the lofty tree is suspended in mid-air. Follow the bright beacon and it leads to CQ Welding on Cass Street in North PB.
“We came up with the idea several years ago,” according to Chuck Quillen, owner of CQ Welding. An American flag usually waves from the flag pole, but Quillen says a string on the pole needed replacing one holiday season. So he and his son Dave detached the pole from the building and lowered the 58-foot pole horizontally into the welding yard. Since it was December, they said, “While the pole is down, let’s see if we can put a Christmas tree on top of the pole and hoist it all back up.” Quillen added: “It took some doing and hours to figure it out, like building an adapter for the tree to sit on and getting extension cords up to the tree lights. But we did it, it worked!”
Now, the raising of the unique Christmas tree has become a soaring seasonal favorite in North PB. “The residents around here get a big kick out of it,” said Quillen. “We get Christmas cards from people we don’t even know thanking us for putting up the tree. We enjoy it and they enjoy it.” Quillen gets emotional when he thinks how his once crazy idea has turned into something that’s now beloved by the neighborhood. “It makes me cheerful. I smile every time I see the tree. And if it brings others cheer and makes them smile, then isn’t that what this season is all about?”