LINCOLN -- Since 2004, the Office of the Capitol Commission has used Christmas ornaments to commemorate aspects of the Nebraska State Capitol building while expressing the messages intended in its original design.

Each year, the commission releases an ornament designed around the Capitol's architecture, offering the general public an opportunity to learn more about it.

"We Nebraskans see the Capitol and come to the building, use the building, visit and tour it," said Roxanne Smith, the tourism supervisor for the commission. "But there's so much artistic detail, and it is such a gem in terms of an architectural monument that sometimes there's too much to see."

The 3-inch solid brass ornaments are designed based on what the commission believes should be highlighted. This can include messages, artwork, motifs and seals.

The 2024 ornament depicts part of a light fixture in the Governor's Hearing Room, which was restored this year as part of the Capitol's heating, ventilation and air conditioning replacement project.

Smith said the entire process of creating and selling the ornaments takes around four months. The commission decides on a feature and creates a preliminary sketch, then sends it to Beacon, an ornament manufacturing company in Rhode Island.

The commission then works with Beacon to tweak the design, and the company then manufactures about 500 ornaments and ships them to Nebraska to be sold. The commission also sends Beacon educational information that is incorporated into the packaging and a card.

"We want it to be a true representation of the ornament and the building," Smith said, "because the artists that created our building were so careful and were so meticulous in every detail that we want to respect the artistic integrity of the Capitol."

Legislators, Nebraska Supreme Court judges, tour participants and even non-Nebraska residents all flock to purchase an ornament each year, Smith said.

Former Lincoln City Council member and State Sen. Ken Haar of Lincoln buys one each year to add to his personal collection. After buying one when he became a senator in 2008, Haar decided to purchase the ornaments from the previous years, as well.

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He keeps them all on a wooden tree in his home, along with a binder of photos of the ornaments and information about them, including where to find the objects or motifs in the Capitol building.

"Some of them are really important reminders," Haar said.

The first ornament in Haar's collection was the 2008 angel with the message "Hope" engraved at the bottom. The figure is located in the dome of the second floor Rotunda, where eight angels of virtue form a mural.

"It talks about what we have to do to be civilized. And so that's in the little card, and everything about hope, we need to be reminded of some of those things," Haar said. "I think today's rancorous political stuff going on, things like civility and all those are important parts of being civilized."

His favorite ornament is from 2006 and depicts the relief sculpture "The Spirit of the Pioneers," located above the grand staircase leading to the north entrance of the Capitol.

The relief is accompanied by the message "The Salvation of the State is the Watchfulness of the Citizen."

"That thing, and also hope, ought to be put in front of all the state senators and put 'em in front of me too, and say 'you know, this is all around you. And when things get rancorous, think of hope,'" Haar said.

In the future, Haar said he'd like to create a game where he can take kids to the Capitol and have them search for the ornaments' motifs as a way to educate them about the building.

Smith said the ornaments were created as a way of preserving the Capitol while simultaneously raising funds to restore it, and they seem to be fulfilling their purpose.

"We want Nebraskans, as well as visitors, to see beyond just the overall beauty of the Capitol and start focusing on the individual artistic elements," Smith said. "And looking at how those artistic elements were specifically created to represent Nebraska."

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