Christmas Tree Goes Through The Roof In Viral Photo — Most Creative Tree Of 2014?

A Christmas tree that appears so majestic that it actually breaks through the roof of a house may be the most creative Christmas tree of the 2014 holiday season. The image of the roof-busting tree is so striking that a photo of the three went viral over the weekend, collecting more than five million views on social media, according to the man who posted the photo and created the tree display.

“If you Google, Christmas tree, roof and moose, it comes up on the top of Google images,” said Wayne Richey, the creative Boise, Idaho, Christmas reveler behind the amusing and rather memorable photo. “It’s exploded and been a lot of fun.”

Here’s the amazing image, that was picked up and reshared by such prominent Facebook celebrities as George Takei and Larry the Cable Guy, leading to the ever-piling view count.

So, can you figure out what’s really going on in this tree photo? Is it a Photoshop job? Did Richey vandalize his own house just to make a splash in his neighborhood, and online, with his oversize Christmas tree? Does size really matter when it comes to Christmas trees?

Actually, Richey says the process was simple, but nonetheless labor-intensive.

“I cut about 3 feet out of the middle. Half goes in the house, half goes on the roof,” said Richey, explaining how he fit the 16-foot tree in a house with ceilings only about eight feet high.

But what really makes the display — well, other than the wooden moose off to the left of the picture — is the window. The whole stunt would fall flat without that large picture window.

“Forty years ago, I bought this house and when I came in, looking at this house, I saw the big open front windows on the intersection,” Rickey recalls. “I said, ‘I’m putting a tree in that window.'”

The tree, inside the house and out, sports about 1,400 Christmas lights, making it as colorful as it is unusual.

This year was not the first time Richey has constructed his “through the roof” Christmas tree. He’s been doing it for several years, and first came up with the stunt in the 1980s. But 2014 is the first time he’s turned the unique tree into an internet viral sensation.

“The first week we had 450,000 views, 500 comments and it’s just exploded, since then,” he said.

It seems Wayne Richey’s Christmas tree has gone through the roof in more ways than one.