A five-meter high Christmas tree marking the 500th anniversary of the decorated Christmas tree in Latvia has been set up in front of the Embassy of Latvia on Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, DC.

This "Christmas Tree" project is part of the collaboration between the Embassy of Latvia, the Riga City Council and the Maryland Christmas Tree Association. Each holiday season Maryland Christmas tree growers sell over 120,000 trees. This year the association is offering the opportunity to win a prize – a free trip to Riga, the birthplace of the decorated Christmas tree – to those who visit a Maryland Christmas Tree Association (MCTA) farm and enter the contest.

The tree in front of the Embassy of Latvia came from Western Maryland, 300 kilometres from Washington, DC. During the event on December 10, Ambassador Andrejs Pildegovics together with Marshall and Cindy Stacy, Maryland’s largest tree farm owners, lit the holiday tree. Decorations for the tree were provided by the Riga City Council. The event was attended by foreign diplomats (among them Estonian representatives), neighbors, DC-area Latvians and their children, representatives of the US government. The guests had a chance to view a short video on the tradition of the Latvian Christmas tree, produced by LIVE Riga, and were served gingerbread, hot cider and mulled wine. The decorated tree will stay on Massachusetts Avenue until the beginning of January.
As part of this project the State of Maryland has donated a tree to Riga, which has already been set up in dowtown Riga together with trees from various other countries. Riga has sent decorations from Latvia that will be presented to Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley for decorating the central tree in Annapolis, Maryland.