D.C. Tree Gets Wrapped Up and Ready for Ahs

WASHINGTON — Before the president can flip the switch that illuminates the National Christmas Tree just south of the White House on Monday evening, before thousands of lights can spark thousands of oohs and ahs, a man called Pops has a few things to do.

Actually, Pops and his fellow decorators have a lot to do. The tree--40 feet of potbellied Colorado blue spruce--wears enough bulbs to decorate more than 500 Christmas trees (125,000 lights) and drinks enough electric juice to power three homes (75,000 watts). It eats up six miles of electrical cord, according to Pops. And Pops should know.

He’s spent the last three weeks working that cord. He’s helped plug in close to 200 lighted ornaments shaped like snowflakes and bows to the wires that run to an underground electrical system, and he’s fastened rows of gold garland to cables that run up the tree. Pops, who when decorating prefers his nickname over John W. Glodeck, said the job often makes him feel like Mr. Claus, tinkering with holiday lights high above ground in a cherry-picker sled.

There’s no shortage of helping hands when it comes to pampering the country’s most pampered Christmas tree. Some are paid, but many volunteer. Pops, a member of Carpenters Local Union 1110, is just one of platoons of decorators, ornament-makers, lighting designers, carpenters and horticulturists who make dressing up the National Christmas Tree a national priority.

As many as 1,000 people work on the project year-round. “This whole group is almost like elves,” said John Betchkal, executive director of the nonprofit organization that coordinates the monthlong Pageant of Peace and its opening tree lighting, considered by many as the start of Washington’s holiday season. “It’s hard to keep track of how many are involved.”

The tree is a living monument of needle and branch, or a garish symbol more Hollywood than holidays, depending on who delivers the opinion. When President Clinton lights the tree a few minutes before 6 p.m. EST Monday, in a tradition dating nearly eight decades, the spruce will be spruced up. It’ll show off two kinds of multidimensional ornaments made to survive cold nights with a high-tech plastic used in the face shields of astronauts’ helmets.

It’ll also have a respectable bill of health. Millions of other trees have to give up their lives for the Santa cause. This year, 36 million real Christmas trees will be sold in the United States, up about 1 million from last year, the National Christmas Tree Assn. said. The National Christmas Tree, though, is one of the few that live through the holidays.

Planted in October 1978, the tree was a donation from a York, Pa., woman who had received it as a Mother’s Day gift more than a decade earlier. Its two predecessors did not fare as well. The first living tree, a 42-foot Colorado blue spruce planted in 1973, was dying just three years later. Another spruce, donated by an anonymous Maryland family, took its place in 1977 but blew down the next year in a windstorm.

The current tree has had better luck, which is good, considering that the National Park Service does not have a backup. The tree gets a trim once a year, while surrounding trees wait three years for a pruning. It also gets checked often for spider mites, which caused mild damage to the tips of branches a few years back.

Rats also have visited the tree, sparking what National Park Service horticulturist Helen Matthews described as a “rodent control program.” Other animals are more welcome. Matthews said a duck was found nesting her eggs at the base of the tree a few years ago. Park Service crews delayed pruning to give her privacy.

Pops takes his work home with him, stringing up decorations on his family tree in New Carrollton, Md.

“My wife said, ‘You got too many lights on it,’ ” said Pops, 59, a retired Washington, D.C., police officer. “I said, ‘I’m just doing what I do out here.’ ”