If you think decorating a Christmas tree is only about tinsel and string lights, the Griffin MSI’s annual “Christmas Around the World and Holidays of Light” exhibition will prove you wrong. Every year, the museum assembles its four-story Grand Tree while hundreds of volunteers decorate more than 50 artificial pines that represent Chicago’s diverse communities and their holiday traditions. These tree decorators are less like Santa’s elves and more like small-scale architects of joy—armed with ladders, handmade ornaments and stories to share one decoration at a time.
I visited the MSI the day after Halloween, while the city was still sleeping off its collective hangover and sugar crash, to witness the construction of these holiday icons. (They’ll open to the public on November 8 and stay on view through early January.) Peppered throughout the museum’s marble rotunda, clusters of emerald pines stood sentinel around the Grand Tree as volunteers worked diligently—but no less joyfully. They fluffed branches, hung ornaments and fussed over every glittering bit and bob like surgeons of seasonal joy. The smell of coffee perfumed the air while children and adults alike nibbled on donuts and admired their handiwork. And from across the hall, the Tesla coil cracked like a whip, its electric snap echoing through the festivities as if to say: science never stops, not even for Christmas.
At the head of the operation, perched at a folding table scattered with meticulous volunteer schedule spreadsheets and drained coffee cups, sat Amelia Pollock, the MSI’s volunteer projects coordinator. This year marks her second holiday season in the role. Planning and executing the exhibition is nearly a yearlong endeavor—spanning from July to February—and involves selecting the countries and cultural groups represented, organizing tree layouts and ensuring that volunteers can bring their yuletide fantasies to life.
One of Pollock’s favorite parts of the project is watching how the tradition flows through families—how parents who once decorated as children now return with their kids, passing on not just holiday decor but a sense of belonging. “People have passed down their ornaments and the tradition through families and organizations,” she says. “We have this incredible sense of community with all of the people who come together to make this happen.”
I wandered the lobby’s perimeter and paused at a tree adorned with fabric dolls and crimson paper flowers—Mexico’s tree, which was decorated by Chicago Día De Los Niños, an organization that advocates for educational and cultural resources for Chicago children. According to Liliana Aceves, a board member and volunteer, the organization chooses a different Mexican state to celebrate each year. This year the spotlight shines on Jalisco, with the tree decked out in handmade mariachi dolls and paper poinsettias—a native bloom of Mexico. The creation of the tree is about “creating and finding a new community,” Aceves says. And it shows. Parents from Little Village’s William F. Finkl Academy spent hours sewing the dolls and folding each paper flower to perfection.
A few trees down is a towering pine, studded with hand-sized mirrors etched in fleur-de-lis and other unmistakably French motifs, crowned by a blazing Eiffel Tower—the creation of the American Association of Teachers of French’s Northwest Indiana chapter. Ricky Baron, a member of the AAFT since 2006 and former chapter president, tells me the tree is meant to champion the French language and culture—no small feat in a country where “freedom fries” rhetoric still resides in painfully recent cultural memory.
“Canada is still our number-one trading partner—they’re bilingual,” Baron says. “There’s this stereotype that no one uses French and no one needs to know it, but it’s still vital in the United States. [The AAFT] encourages people to study through high school and at the university level.”
In its 13th year, France’s tree rotates through eight themes so that students who visit from seventh to 12th grade—the typical span of French education in Northwest Indiana—never see the same tree twice. This year’s theme is diamonds, represented by the mirrored ornaments. Art students at River Forest High School began working back in September, studying French imagery, choosing symbols that resonated with them, sketching designs and finally acid-etching them onto the mirrors.
Every tree says as much about its decorators as it does about Christmas. Soon the forest will come down, the MSI will return to its usual rhythm and the decorators will start feverishly planning for next year’s display. But among the artificial pine needles and twinkling lights, this community built a quiet reminder: that beauty still matters, and that people still know how to make it—together.
“Christmas Around the World and Holidays of Light” will be open from November 8, 2025, through January 5, 2026. Admission is $16.95 for adult Chicago residents and $9.95 for child Chicago residents; tickets can be purchased here. On November 8, the Griffin MSI will hold a Tree Lighting and Cultural Festival, which will include a countdown to the lighting of the Grand Tree, live performances and a visit from Santa Larry, the first Black Santa to spread holiday cheer at the Mall of America. Tickets can be purchased here.