Article content continued

“Denis — this is what a Christmas tree should look like! Return yours to Charlie Brown asap!”

Watson was referring to the recent ribbing Coderre has received for his city’s Christmas tree in downtown Montreal’s Place des Festivals. The balsam fir stands at an impressive 26 metres. However, the branches of the tree appear limp and scrawny, and are adorned with kitschy Canadian Tire ornaments.

The idea was to celebrate the city’s upcoming 375th anniversary with a Christmas tree bigger and grander than the famed Norway spruce at Rockefeller Center in New York.

Instead, Montreal wound up with something only Charlie Brown could love.

The holiday evergreen was widely ridiculed on social media, and even by The New York Times, which called it “skinny, misshapen and widely unloved.”