I skipped the lighting ceremony (mostly because John Boehner as Speaker of the House was doing the honors =) but took a walk there on Christmas evening. The sight was wonderful indeed! The tree is really massive – equivalent to about 6-story tall building – but surprisingly slender and perfectly symmetrical. 10,000 LED lights light up the night and the citizens of California prepared 5,000 ornaments that adorn the evergreen branches. For the most part they are beautiful, thoughtful, and touching although some made me wonder: a rubber chicken? Lakers t-shirt? Well, the theme was “California Shines” but still…
And one more piece of trivia: every year the tree is topped by the same star ornament. I miss traditional Polish Christmas staying in DC this year but the Capitol Tree never disappoints and makes the usually non-white holidays here special. Wesołych Świąt!