OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
1:59 PM – Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Alongside members of the Nevada Congressional Delegation, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson lit up the Capitol Christmas tree, which arrived from Nevada, commencing the Christmas festivities in the nation’s capital.
On Tuesday evening, the tree, whose nickname is “Silver Belle” after the Silver State, was unveiled with help from Grady Armstrong — the Nevada fourth grader who won this year’s Capitol Christmas Tree essay contest.
As part of his prize, Armstrong spoke to the crowd after Johnson (R-La.) said a few words.
“You don’t have to go far to enjoy Nevada. Right from my school playground, you can look east for hundreds of miles over the mountain ranges that make up the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest,” Armstrong said. “I want the country to know how special Nevada’s public land and national forests are. These lands are full of wonder, from big animals like elk, mule deer, bighorn sheep and even moose.”
“Silver Belle” is a 53-foot-tall red fir from the 5.6 million-acre Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada. It’s the first tree from the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest to be featured on the Capitol’s West Lawn, and marks the first time in 61 years that a tree has been used from Nevada.
It traveled about 3,000 miles to Washington, D.C. for the honor. Once in the nation’s capital, it was decorated with 6,000 LED lights and more than 5,000 ornaments, many of them made by children from across Nevada.
The U.S. Forest Service, which has provided Christmas trees to the Capitol since 1970, believes the tree is roughly 50 years old based off of its “impressive” growth rings. This means that the seedling sprouted during President Gerald Ford’s administration, when gasoline cost about 53 cents per gallon, and the Vietnam War was nearing its end.
Forester Duncan Leao said that it could have lived another 200 years had it not been harvested for the holiday.
The decorative tree will be lit from dusk until 11 p.m. every night through early January.
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