U.S. Capitol Christmas tree arrives from N.C.

Nov. 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. Capitol Christmas tree, a 78-foot-tall red spruce grown in North Carolina, arrived in Washington on Friday.

The tree will be lit with thousands of LED bulbs and decorated with hand-crafted ornaments from people in North Carolina, said Jim Kaufman, director of the Capitol Grounds and Arboretum.

The lighting is scheduled for Nov. 29. The official lighter will be Coche Tiger, a 9-year-old citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina.

Nicknamed "Ruby," the tree was harvested from North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest on Nov. 2 in a virtual ceremony.

It was loaded onto a flatbed trailer attached to a Kenworth T680 truck driven by Ed Kingdon Jr. and Deb Kingdon of North Carolina's Hardy Brothers Trucking. The tree made several stops in North Carolina communities during a 14-day tour before arriving at the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol.

Part of the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree program involves a partnership between the U.S. Forest Service and the National Forest Foundation to raise funds for a nursery that will grow seedlings for reforestation. The nursery will eventually grow seedlings from "Ruby."

The nursery will be managed by the Southern Highlands Reserve, a nonprofit arboretum and research center that seeks to raise 50,000 red spruce trees for public lands in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

The tradition of erecting a Christmas tree on the west front lawn of the Capitol goes back as far as 1919. But it did not become a formal and regular occurrence until 1964, when a Douglas fir was purchased in Birdsboro, Pa., and planted on the lawn.