Ornaments by Wisconsin School for the Deaf students will dazzle President’s Park at the White House in Washington, D.C. as part of the 94th annual national Christmas tree lighting display.
WSD students designed ornaments that showcase things that make Wisconsin special.
The hand-crafted ornaments will adorn one of 56 trees representing each U.S. state, territory and the District of Columbia from Dec. 1 through Jan. 1 as part of the America Celebrates display.
The fifth- and eighth-graders of the Wisconsin School for the Deaf began the ornament project by researching and discovering the history of and facts about Wisconsin. Themes selected for the globe ornaments included Wisconsin’s dairy industry, the establishment of the first Earth Day, the robin, the state bird, Anishinaabe and the Ho-Chunk Nation, the extinct mammoth and the formation of the Circus Colony. They were inspired to mold and shape the representative figures and scenes out of colorful homemade salt dough clay and polymer clay.
Presented by the National Park Service and National Park Foundation, the national Christmas tree lighting is one of America’s oldest holiday traditions. The first national Christmas tree lighting took place 94 years ago on Christmas Eve in 1923, when President Calvin Coolidge lit a Christmas tree in front of 3,000 spectators on the Ellipse. Since 1923, each succeeding president has carried on the tradition.
For more event information and updates, visit www.thenationaltree.org and follow the National Christmas Tree on Twitter at @TheNationalTree.
