A 30-foot Colorado blue spruce will make its way from Lebanon County in Pennsylvania to D.C. on Friday, where it will gain a spiffy new title: National Christmas Tree.
The spruce will be planted at the Ellipse Saturday morning around 9:30 a.m. in advance of the 97th annual National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony on December 5.
The Ellipse is open to the public but fair warning—it will be tricky to see the new tree up close on Saturday. That’s because the National Park Service is using a crane to install the towering tree and the area will be treated as an active construction site. According to NPS, late October is an ideal time to plant a tree. Still, agency horticulturists will be watching to make sure the D.C. transplant stays healthy.
The Pennsylvania spruce is taking over as the nation’s Christmas tree after NPS removed its predecessor, a Colorado blue spruce from Virginia planted in 2012, on Tuesday morning.
Damage to the previous tree began in 2014. “There was a bad windstorm that January—it was wind and snow,” says NPS spokesperson Katelyn Liming. “And last winter, at the end of 2018, there was an incident where a man climbed the tree which also caused some damage.”
The tradition of lighting a National Christmas Tree began in 1923 under President Calvin Coolidge’s administration. Since 1973, it has been a “living tree,” meaning it is planted in the ground rather than chopped down.
The tree first lights up during the December 5 ceremony. After that, it will light up daily starting at 4:30 p.m.
The online lottery, which awards free tickets to the tree-lighting ceremony, has already closed. Lottery winners will learn they scored tickets on November 4. The ceremony will feature a countdown to the official lighting of the tree along with live musical performances, who will be announced in the coming weeks.
If you forgot to enter the lottery, don’t fret. Visitors can access the tree (for free) along with 56 additional smaller trees representing the states, territories, and D.C. from December 9 to January 1. Local performers are expected to play in the Ellipse throughout the month of December.
And if you’re really craving updates, you can follow @TheNationalTree on Twitter.
