Campus Christmas Tree Lighting 2022

Students gathered around the newly lit tree. Photo by Ava Battinelli '26

It’s that time of the year again - the annual lighting of the Campus Christmas Tree at Marist College was held on November 28, 2022. 

The Campus Christmas Tree Lighting is a tradition that the Marist community cherishes. Students gathered around the tree just after sundown to witness the tree come to life. After being lit, students stood near the tree to take photos and admire it.

“It was really great to see everyone come together,” said Jesse Conti ’26. “It’s definitely one of the coolest traditions at Marist.”

Preparing the Marist Christmas tree to be lit is a long and precise process. Starting in mid-October to avoid any extreme weather conditions, decorating the tree takes about 15 working days for the Physical Plant staff to accomplish.

Students in front of the tree after being lit. Photo by Ava Battinelli '26

The Marist Christmas tree, despite being modeled after the Rockefeller Christmas tree, is composed of 74,000 lights, making it outnumber the Rockefeller tree by 24,000. The 74,000 lights are attached to 748 strands on the tree, with every fifth bulb on each strand being colored “Marist” red. Despite the significant number of lights, the tree is somewhat cost-effective. Since the lights are LED, they are easily replaced when they burn out. 

The Marist Christmas tree has been decorated with this extreme attention to detail and abundance of lights since 2002, making the 2022 tree lighting the 20th anniversary. Deborah DiCaprio, Vice President for Student Affairs said, “We have been decorating the tree this way since 2002. Prior to that, it was just long strands of colored lights and not very impactful or beautiful.”

Director of Physical Plant, Justin Butwell said, “In 2001, Dennis Murray challenged the Physical Plant department to improve the way we decorated the campus Christmas tree. After a trip to Rockefeller Center, we decided to wrap the lights as it’s done today. Over the years, we have added red lights to the strings and switched to LED lights.”

With the tree lighting not being an emphasized campus event in the past few years due to the pandemic, students are delighted to have been able to gather together and witness the event in person again. Jen Dorsey ’23 says, “I think this year’s tree lighting, more than others in the past, brought a sense of community back to Marist. Since COVID-19 hit at the end of my freshman year, there has been a sense of isolation in the world in general, and I think the tree lighting always finds a way to release that feeling.