The capitol Christmas tree is nice, don’t get me wrong here…and it’s decorated with ornaments sent in by folks like you and me. But it wasn’t all that long ago when we still had a real, live, organic Christmas tree in the Memorial Hall each Christmas season.

I remember talking to Governor Dalrymple and his wife one evening when they mentioned that they were receiving pressure about fire code when it came to having a real tree. The writing was on the wall at that point. North Dakota has already managed to burn down one capitol building already, after all. So in 2015, when we got the new artificial tree, it wasn’t that much of a surprise.

Thankfully I took lots of photos of the real trees so I can still enjoy them. And yes, I do still enjoy the “fake” tree every year.