State Christmas Tree In Place and Decorated Without Controversy

By: Robert Kittle/WBTW News 13 | SCNow
Published: November 19, 2007

Workers in downtown Columbia and school children on field trips to the Statehouse stopped and looked at the state Christmas tree being decorated Monday, but this time there were no incredulous stares, gaping jaws or funny looks. This year's tree is full and decorated with 10,000 lights, red, silver and gold balls and other shiny glass ornaments. In other words, a normal, beautiful Christmas tree.
It hasn't always been that way.
In 2003, the Columbia Garden Club took over the decorating of the state tree from the Columbia Breakfast Optimist Club, which has sponsored the tree and its lighting ceremony for 30 years. It continues to sponsor the carolighting ceremony.
Leslie Wrenn, president of the Columbia Garden Club, says the group wanted a tree with as many lights on it as possible and wanted to keep the decorations simple. For inspiration, the group looked to the tree in Rockefeller Plaza in New York. She says there's also a record store in Times Square that uses CDs as decorations, and they reflect a lot of light.
So when a South Carolina company donated 40,000 CDs to decorate the state tree, that's what the club used.
The CDs were not a hit with most members of the public, with some passers-by saying the tree looked tacky, others wondering if it was a joke. But bad public reaction wasn't the only problem.
Wrenn says, "As you all know, in December we'll have 30-mile-an-hour winds. And those CDs actually became weapons of mass destruction down on the concrete."
So club members took down the CDs and used regular ornaments.
Then there was a problem with the tree itself the following year. The club wanted to use a South Carolina-grown tree and found a beautiful one in Horry County. But it was a different kind of tree than what's normally used. The limbs on this tree grew up instead of out, so when workers cut off the bottom branches so it would fit in the ground, all the greenery around the bottom of the tree was gone.
The tree looked butchered, with some calling what happened the "Columbia Chainsaw Massacre", while others compared the tree to Charlie Brown's.
"Well, our hearts sunk. It was such a wonderful story, that it'd been planted during Hurricane Hugo. It was a lovely family from Horry County. So we just thought all of our good intentions were for naught," Wrenn says.
They came up with the idea of putting other, smaller trees around the base of the state tree to fill in the gaps. It worked, with most people never realizing there was a problem, she says.
"It was not a Charlie Brown Christmas tree," she adds.
Now this year's tree is up and decorated, with no controversy.
"We've got this down-pat," Wrenn says. "I mean, now, we can get the tree up within a week. The ornaments are all going to be put on today. The boxes will be around the tree, so we're getting this down."

State Christmas Tree In Place and Decorated Without Controversy

Share This:

More from this channel:

Reader Comments

Deal of the Day

Weather

Latest News Video

Things to Do

Links We Like