This month, Grant Grove in Kings Canyon will host the 100th Annual Trek to the Nation’s Christmas Tree. On December 14, assembling at 2 p.m. with the official ceremony beginning at 2:30 p.m. The event honors the General Grant Tree, the long-lived, enormous, and officially recognized “Nation’s Christmas Tree.” December 14 is also a free entrance day at Sequoia and Kings Canyon, so Grant Grove will see heavier foot traffic and limited parking. The General Grant Tree stands roughly 268 feet tall and is among the world’s oldest living trees — an apt living symbol for a national observance. President Calvin Coolidge designated it the Nation’s Christmas Tree on April 28, 1926. Congress later named it a National Shrine under Public Law 441 on March 29, 1956, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz dedicated the tree on November 11, 1956, as a perpetual shrine honoring the nation’s armed forces. Those layers of designation give the site ecological, historical, and commemorative weight.