(ARA) - If you think putting up your Christmas tree is difficult, imagine what it would be like to decorate with 500 sets of twinkling lights, 125 lighted ornaments, each the size of a child's bicycle wheel, and a tree so tall it requires a mechanical lift to put the star on top.
That was the challenge facing the team from GE Consumer & Industrial as they completed decorating the National Christmas Tree -- a donation the company has made to the country for the last 44 years.
"Most people just pull their boxes out of the basement and start decorating, but for us, it's a 10-month process from the drawing board to the tree lighting," said Kathy Presciano, a lighting designer for GE Consumer & Industrial and designer of the National Christmas Tree for the last 12 years. "The National Christmas Tree has quite a following, and, as a symbol of the holiday spirit in our country, people are waiting every year to see what new and different design the tree will have. We start from scratch every time."
This year's tree gives a nod to the Christmas trees many remember from their childhood, decked with multi-colored lights, round shiny ornaments, and the traditional lighted star on the top. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush officially "flipped the switch" to light the tree during the "Pageant of Peace," a nationally televised event on Dec. 7.
With the exception of a short break right after the holidays, there is never a time when GE isn't working on the National Christmas Tree. Here's an insider's view of the work that went into the 2006 tree.
February: Presciano began work on ideas for the tree, first developing the general "old fashioned Christmas" theme, then drawing sketches of each ornament, and researching sourced materials to check the feasibility of her design.
June: Three-dimensional computer designs based on Presciano's sketches were sent to Senior Project Engineer Greg Tremblay at GE Plastics in Pittsfield, Mass., where he developed the blueprint for molding the ornaments out of GE Lexan resin -- a lightweight plastic technology.
July and August: Tremblay worked with a Pittsfield-area, family-owned business to create the sphere-shaped, aluminum molds needed for transforming sheets of Lexan resin into the tree's extra-large holiday ornaments. Around this time, Presciano began calculating how heavy the ornaments would be, and how many the tree could reasonably hold.
September: After molds were cut, it took a week for Project Engineer Craig Wojcicki and his team at GE Plastics to transform more than 3,000 square feet of Lexan resin into 250, 15 by 18-inch sphere-shaped ornaments. The Lexan resin sheet was heated to 400 degrees F placed over the molds, and formed into shape using vacuum pressure.
Once molded, the ornaments made their final journey in early October back to Cleveland, where Brilliant Electric Sign Co. worked under GE's supervision to reverse paint the Lexan globes with bright colors and a snowflake motif, combining them with the clear lamps and holographic backer that make the rest of the ornament. Early November, 125 ornaments were shipped to Washington, D.C., with the remainder going to GE's corporate headquarters in Fairfield, Conn., and to GE Consumer & Industrial in Cleveland, where smaller replicas of the National Christmas Tree are displayed.
November: Once in Washington, a Maryland-based business spent the remaining time leading up to the Dec. 7 ceremony installing the lights and ornaments. Once the decorating was complete, the electrical system was tested and retested to be sure every light would sparkle when the President pulled the switch.
"As anyone who's ever put up a Christmas tree can tell you, the testing is the most nerve-wracking part of the process," said Presiciano. "But the work is worth it. When the tree is lit, it is a chance to enjoy a beautiful holiday spectacle and reflect on the many blessings we enjoy as Americans."
