SC’s state Christmas tree will arrive Monday, setting holiday events in motion

It’s not Santa coming to town quite yet, but it is the South Carolina state Christmas tree.

Experience Columbia SC, Columbia Garden Club and Garden Club of South Carolina announced Wednesday that the tree will be hauled in around 9:30 a.m. Monday and placed on the North Lawn of the South Carolina State House on Gervais Street.

“The arrival of the state Christmas tree signals the beginning of the holiday season,” the group said in a news release.

The tree is a 35-foot-tall sheared Concolor Fir, also known as a white fir, and comes from Pinetum Christmas Tree Farm, a 370-acre Christmas tree farm in Swanton, Maryland. It’s the ninth year the Garden Club has worked with Pinetum.

“Pinetum owners Marshall and Cindy Stacy own a vacation house in the Lowcountry and consider South Carolina their second home,” said Charlene Slaughter of Experience Columbia.

It’s the 17th year TimberTech of Greer has picked up the tree and delivered it to Columbia.

“The Christmas tree’s journey to the State House is a special ritual for Bruce Vollnogle, owner of TimberTech,” Slaughter said.

Dominion Energy will string more than 13,000 LED lights on the tree, and the garden clubs will hang 900 ornaments in the coming days.

The tree will be lit during the Governor’s Carolighting event at 6 p.m Nov. 21.

Last year, rain and coronavirus concerns forced the Carolighting inside the State House, and it was closed to the public. The event was streamed live on SCETV. It featured a speech by Gov. Henry McMaster and music by the 282nd Army Band from Fort Jackson and a medley of Christmas songs sung by Hugh Weathers, the South Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture.

Everyone wore masks when they were not speaking or singing.

This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 12:33 PM.