{"id":50039,"date":"2020-12-04T19:09:24","date_gmt":"2020-12-05T02:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-tree-brightens-holidays-at-u-s-capitol\/"},"modified":"2020-12-05T02:09:24","modified_gmt":"2020-12-05T02:09:24","slug":"colorado-tree-brightens-holidays-at-u-s-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-tree-brightens-holidays-at-u-s-capitol\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado tree brightens holidays at U.S. Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Members
Members of the Colorado delegation watch as the lights are turned on at the Capitol Christmas Tree. \u201cI thank the Colorado delegation and the people of Colorado for blessing our Capitol\u2019s Christmas celebration with this magnificent Engelmann spruce from the GMUG Forest,\u201d said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.<\/span>Caitlyn Kim\/CPR News<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A towering Engelmann spruce came alive Wednesday night, lighting up the U.S. Capitol after traveling from Colorado to the nation\u2019s capital to become this year\u2019s Capitol Christmas Tree.<\/p>\n

The lighting ceremony was the culmination of a long journey that began with the 82-year-old tree being harvested Nov. 5 near Montrose deep within the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests.<\/p>\n

The tree then crossed the country, stopping throughout Colorado and in other states along the way before arriving in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 20, where it was draped in multicolored lights and adorned with thousands of ornaments that, like the tree, came from Colorado.<\/p>\n

Before Wednesday\u2019s ceremony, members of Colorado\u2019s congressional delegation were on hand at the ceremony to offer remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado is honored to furnish this year\u2019s Capitol Christmas Tree,\u201d Bennet said, standing alongside fellow Sen. Cory Gardner and U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, Ed Perlmutter and Jason Crow. \u201cAs this sapling grew year after year \u2026 so too did America. \u2026 I hope it will remind us that whatever challenges our times may bring, like this tree, our country can grow stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the nation\u2019s challenges were on display at the ceremony, as mask-clad attendees stood 6 feet apart and a man sanitized the lectern after each speaker.<\/p>\n

But despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the record-breaking forest fire season in Colorado and several other states, the tree now stands tall in its new home on the Capitol\u2019s west lawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn behalf of our state, we\u2019re grateful to provide this symbol of hope and unity in this uncertain time,\u201d Bennet said.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi then took the lectern, thanked Colorado and lit the tree to a smattering of applause from the pandemic-limited crowd.<\/p>\n

The Capitol Christmas Tree is selected yearly from one of the nation\u2019s national forests; last year\u2019s came from the Carson National Forest in northeastern New Mexico. This year was the fourth time the tree came from Colorado since a tree was first lit at the Capitol in 1964.<\/p>\n

Choosing the perfect tree from the vast swathes of national forest across the Western Slope was a long process. Colorado Public Radio highlighted Todd Gardiner, a U.S. Forest Service silviculturist who spent nearly a year scouring the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests on the hunt for the perfect tree.<\/p>\n

After representatives of the Architect of the Capitol selected the tree from among the U.S. Forest Service-selected candidates, the tree was cut down in a virtual ceremony. It then was loaded onto a semitrailer to begin its long cross-country journey.<\/p>\n

The mammoth spruce spent several days traveling through Colorado, passing small Western Slope towns like Ouray and Delta as well as the population centers of Grand Junction and Denver. It then made its way eastward, stopping in North Carolina and Maryland before reaching its final destination in downtown Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado is so happy to provide that tree,\u201d DeGette said, standing in front of the soon-to-be-illuminated piece of Colorado. \u201cThat can help bring the light that can light us into the new year, into a new time of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Purcell is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Engelmann spruce began journey on Western Slope<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[755,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-christmas","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50039"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}