Honored like an important ambassador from the plant kingdom, an Engelmann spruce from Utah was paraded through Washington, D.C., with a full police escort Monday and welcomed by dignitaries as it finally arrived at the U.S. Capitol.
The new national Christmas tree at the Capitol then faced one of the few unexpected problems it encountered during its otherwise routine cross-country trip from Utah.The small crane that lifted the 5-ton, 68-foot tree out of a flatbed truck began to sink in rain-soaked grass on the Capitol grounds. So the tree was returned to the truck while workers set huge wooden planks under the crane's wheels.
The crane then picked up the tree and slowly moved it 100 yards across the boggy Capitol lawn. The tree was trimmed a bit and then placed in its central spot of honor facing the Washington Monument.
"How can you help but be excited having the national Christmas tree from your own state?" said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, one of the dignitaries welcoming the tree.
"It's about 100 years old. The tree is roughly the same age as the state of Utah (celebrating its centennial) and it demonstrates a lot of things: No. 1, the amount of growth and strength that has occurred in the state in those years," he said.
The tree has slowly traveled across the country for the past two weeks, making publicity stops in cities in Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
"As a truck driver, you would have to say it was a boring trip," with nothing but some freezing rain in South Dakota to cause any problems, said one of the drivers, Sam Wilson of Kentucky.
But, he said, watching people's reaction to it on the highway and at stops was fun. "Little kids' eyes would light up. People would give you thumbs up everywhere. People would come out of their homes, and even out of churches, to give us thumbs up when they heard we were coming down the road."
Even Mother Nature in Washington seemed to give her thumbs up to the tree's arrival, ending days of rain and clearing the skies just in time for its final trip with police escort through Washington, punctuated by air horns of the trucks carrying it and honking by other passing cars.
"We hadn't seen the sun since we left Utah, except for a little bit on Thanksgiving Day and now today," said Bevan Killpack, a U.S. Forest Service employee who rode with the tree the entire way.
The tree will be decorated by thousands of electric and other ornaments also trucked from Utah. At a Dec. 10 ceremony, House Speaker Newt Gingrich is expected to light it.
Forty other smaller trees, including at least one from every county in Utah, were also brought to Washington and will be placed in doors around the Capitol and congressional offices with thousands of ornaments made by Utah schoolchildren.
The Utah tree will be essentially one of two national Christmas trees in Washington. The other - a live tree on the Ellipse in front of the White House - is usually lighted by the president or first lady.
Bill Dye, a Forest Service employee from Utah who helped select the Utah tree, said its selection and trip are designed to show the nation that trees are a renewable resource and can be replaced by other trees.
He said even though the 68-foot tree now stands in front of the Capitol, its root system is back in Utah. Some small twigs connected to it, around the stump, are still alive - and he expects they could "grow into a pretty tree again."
Also, he said, some small trees near where the tree was cut grew from seeds from the national Christmas tree and will also grow and show how trees can be replaced and used wisely.
As for the tree at the Capitol, it will be ground into mulch after it is taken down Jan. 2 and used in gardens around the Capitol, "so really it will be here and used for a long time," Dye said.