By Travis Gillmore
Contributing Writer
WASHINGTON — First Lady Melania Trump welcomed a horse-drawn wagon delivering the official White House Christmas Tree to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on Monday.
“It’s a beautiful tree,” Trump said of the massive evergreen destined for the Blue Room. “Merry Christmas!”
The United States Marine Band played Christmas music while the first lady inspected the tree and shook hands and spoke with the three men in top hats occupying the driver’s seat.
Two Clydesdales pulled the decorative green wagon with red bows that carried the approximately 20-foot-tall concolor fir to the executive mansion.
One of the horses showed personality throughout the event, moving energetically and tasting some of the White House shrubbery while on the way up the driveway to the North Portico.
Trump told reporters that planning is underway for the Christmas season.
Dale Haney, the White House grounds superintendent, said he was looking for perfect symmetry when he selected the tree.
“This tree in the Blue Room will see probably at least 100,000 people,” Haney said in a statement. “It’s probably one of the most seen Christmas trees in the world.”
This year’s tree was grown by Korson’s Tree Farms in Sidney, Michigan, a second-generation family-owned business.
“We’ve been entering the national contest since 2009,” owner Rex Korson said in a statement. “We’ve come close to winning before, but it just shows you how hard it is to win and how determined you have to be to compete.”
The farm won the title of grand champion grower — the first from the Great Lakes State since 1985 — in a National Christmas Tree Association contest in July.
Winners of the biennial contest have provided the official White House tree since 1966, according to a statement from the association, which represents more than 4,000 people in the industry.
Some reports suggest that President Franklin Pierce installed a Christmas tree in the White House in 1856, but the first official record of one is President Benjamin Harrison’s tree in 1889, lit with real candles, according to the White House Historical Association.
The first White House Christmas tree with electric lights was installed in 1894 during President Grover Cleveland’s administration.
Next year’s tree is growing now at Silent Night Evergreens in Endeavor, Wisconsin. It is the 10th time a grower from the Badger State has been selected. Howard Pierce, the first winner of the contest, 59 years ago, was also from Wisconsin.
North Carolina has supplied the most White House Christmas trees since the contest began, with 13 winners, including the past two years.
