Capitol Christmas Tree

Usually when an event as wonderful as the lighting of the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree has its 50 th anniversary, the events surrounding it are packed with people ready to celebrate. That was the plan this year, but the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything and yet nothing.

For 50 years, the arrival of the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree has brought enormous excitement to the workers who deliver the tree across the country and then hoist the towering conifer into place on the West Lawn of Capitol Hill.

When most people think of the lighting of a national Christmas tree, they are often thinking of the ceremony near the White House during which the President flips a switch and lights the tree.

I heard a story once about “horny toads” from my mother. How she used to catch so many they filled a shoebox. And my grandfather told me about the Lobo’s howl. Both of these animals are rare or endangered now and I have not found one myself. I hope one day to tell my own children about the animals I...

A special gift from the Carson National Forest has successfully completed its cross-country journey to Washington, D.C.

UPDATE: The Capitol Christmas tree successfully completed the journey from the Carson National Forest (New Mexico) to Washington, D.C.! The U.S. Capitol Architect will prepare the tree for a lighting ceremony on Wednesday, December 4. At about 9 a.m. MST, in a remote section of the Carson National...

With a brief countdown and the flick of a switch, the towering U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree, on the West Lawn of Capitol Hill, lit up the dark. Visitors from all across America, who stood in near freezing temperatures beneath the majestic pine, cheered as the tree’s thousands of lights glistened the...

“Three…two…one!” And with this countdown the journey of three thousand miles for the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree from Montana’s Kootenai National Forest comes to end or just begins for those who have yet to see the massive 79-foot Engelmann spruce now on Capitol Hill.

For many in the D.C. area, the arrival of the towering Capitol Christmas Tree means the holiday season has begun. Every year local residents and tourists from all over the country, as well as delegations from the state that provides the tree, come to view the official lighting of what is fondly...

The American public doesn’t have to sneak a peek at the Christmas present the U.S. Forest Service has given them this year because it’s on full display just below the U.S. Capitol dome on the building’s West Lawn. A gift from the Forest Service’s Payette National Forest, this year’s U.S. Capitol...