FARGO (AP) - The challenge for Gary Boatman is not decorating the Christmas tree, but getting it into the house.

For the third consecutive year, the south Fargo father of two brought home an oversized Christmas tree to put in the middle of the winding staircase in his 126-year-old Fargo home.

The holiday tradition has its roots at Dan Sumpter's tree farm near Vergas, Minn.

"The guy at the tree farm showed us a great big tree, and we said, 'Wow, we've got a place for that,'" Boatman said.

This year's 18½-foot tall white spruce was dragged trunk-first through the front doorway. With a tree base almost 12 feet wide, it required a winch and ratchet straps to pull in the limbs, Boatman said.

"But we've gotten to be very good at it," he said.

To put up the roughly 600-pound behemoth, Boatman attached the winch to the second-floor banister.

"We probably spent four hours getting it upright," he said. "We had to do a lot of trimming."

Boatman's children, Roscoe, 15, and Beth, 13, and his girlfriend, Marilyn Hiltner, helped decorate the tree with dozens of ornaments and about 1,800 lights.

"It's really easy, because the stairway wraps around the tree," Boatman said.

Sumpter said many of his customers buy 12- or 14-foot trees, but few have ceilings high enough for an 18½-footer.

"It was a tremendously huge tree when it was sitting by itself in the field," he said. "It's a tree anybody would be proud to have in their front yard."