2022 Origami Holiday Tree: "Beautiful Bugs"

An annual tradition for this 51st tree, the delightfully decorated Origami Holiday Tree marks the start of the holiday season at the Museum. The theme of this year’s tree is Beautiful Bugs, highlighting an impressive photographic exhibit covering extinct and endangered insects and in anticipation of the new science building with an insectarium opening in early 2023. A dazzling array of simple to exquisitely super-complex insects and arachnids are displayed: highly-detailed spiders, grasshoppers, praying mantis, ladybugs, wasps, honeybees, dragonflies, butterflies, beetles, and wonderful ants. Spotted lantern flies were specifically designed for this year’s base. A hissing cockroach reminds us of Alice Gray’s entomology office and her first origami tree in the early 1970s. Colorful leaves give an impression of the forest floor teeming with these amazing creatures. Of course, there are iconic Museum favorites like the blue whale, the Titanosaur skeleton, T. rex and star mobiles.

Our tree designers, Ros Joyce and Talo Kawasaki, want to thank all of the many volunteers for their artistry and time, as well as the staff of OrigamiUSA and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City who make this annual tradition possible. Museum tickets here.