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

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