Barbara Hollingsworth: Did you know this about Christmas in Washington?

» This year’s National Christmas Tree, a towering 39-foot Colorado blue spruce, is decorated with thousands of lights and 250 platter-sized ornaments by Hargrove, a Lanham-based special events company that designed the floats for Harry Truman’s 1949 inaugural parade. The presidential lighting ceremony on the Ellipse in early December has been a tradition ever since President Calvin Coolidge threw the first switch in 1923.

» The “Christmas Pageant of Peace,” a three-week celebration hosted by the National Park Service, includes 56 smaller trees surrounding the National Christmas Tree representing all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. As many as 10,000 visitors will warm themselves by the burning yule log as they listen to live entertainment provided by volunteer musicians and choirs from all over the nation.

» Washington’s Union Station is at its Beaux-Arts best decked out in holiday finery, including huge wreaths outside and a 30-foot Christmas tree inside the gloriously restored Main Hall. A gift from the government of Norway, the tree is surrounded by replicas of train cars still in use in the Scandinavian nation, delightfully winding their way through miniature mountains and fjords.

» To experience the warm glow of giving, help out the Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Foundation, headquartered in Quantico, Va., which collected a record 18 million toys for 7.5 million needy children last year. Major Bill Grein told The Examiner that the Marines are on target to meet or exceed that number this year. Semper Fi, indeed!

» It just doesn’t seem like Christmas without the ding-a-ling of the 50 or so Salvation Army bell-ringers in D.C., some of whom are recruited from local homeless shelters and halfway houses. Donations help pay for utility assistance, transportation, food and childcare year round. In a nod to the Ghost of Christmas Future, the Salvation Army has an online red kettle, too.

» At least a dozen performances of “The Nutcracker” all over the Washington metro area this year attest to the staying power of this beloved classic ballet, based on a revised version of E.T.A. Hoffman’s “The Nutcracker and the King of Mice” by Alexander Dumas and danced to still-enchanting music by Russian composer PeterIlyich Tchaikovsky.

» For 15 years, the Maine-based Worcester Wreath Co. has donated 5,000 Christmas wreaths that are lovingly laid on graves at nearby Arlington National Cemetery. The breathtaking view of row upon row of white headstones decorated with cheerily beribboned wreaths is guaranteed to make you cry.

» Ford Theater’s production of “A Christmas Carol” this year stars 8-year-old Noah Foster of Gambrills, Md., as both Tiny Tim and the young Ebeneezer Scrooge. Charles Dickens’ classic tale of greed and redemption still resonates with audiences 163 years after it was written in 1843. Or you can download it free at Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) and read it aloud at home before your own roaring fire.

» The National Symphony Orchestra’s annual Kennedy Center presentation of “The Messiah” — George Handel’s musical masterpiece, with its soul-stirring “Hallelujah Chorus” — has become one of Washington’s most beloved holiday traditions. CDs are no substitute for hearing this masterwork in concert. This year’s guest conductor is cellist Kenneth Slowik, artistic director of the Chamber Music Program at the National Museum of American History.

» Midnight Mass at the recently restored St. Matthew’s Cathedral, which was built in 1895 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Romanesque cathedral’s rare marbles and stunning mosaics provide a rich visual backdrop to Christmas carols led by the cathedral’s Festival Singers and Gregorian Scholars. And this will be the first Midnight Mass celebrated by Washington’s new Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl.

As Tiny Tim would say, “God bless us, everyone!”

Barbara Hollingsworth is The Washington Examiner’s local opinion editor.