Carson City School District students are helping decorate the state’s first U.S. Capitol Christmas tree.
The students have been working with their teachers to design and decorate ornaments that reflect Nevada’s culture, landscapes and people.
Their ornaments will adorn the Capitol Christmas Tree and smaller companion trees displayed throughout Washington, D.C. later this year. The Capitol tree will be placed on the West Lawn, with a national ceremony set for early December.
More than 10,000 handmade ornaments have been collected from across the state in anticipation of the new tree. The Carson City students’ ornaments will be shipped to D.C. where they will placed on the tree before its official lighting ceremony in late November.
For the first time, the tree is coming from Nevada’s Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. The tree, named “Silver Belle,” is a 53-foot red fir that will be harvested next month from the Carson Ranger District.
The U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree program, known as the “People’s Tree” project, began in 1964. Since 1970, the U.S. Forest Service has worked with the Architect of the Capitol to select a tree that meets specific criteria. Each year, a different national forest is chosen. The 2024 tree was provided by Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.
For the first time, Nevada will send a Christmas tree to the U.S. Capitol, and it’s taking a scenic route.
Organizers say updates will be posted online at uscapitolchristmastree.com.
(Carson City School District, and the Forest Service contributed to this report.)
