Six Months Before Christmas, the Vatican Announces Details About Its Christmas Tree: What Do Children with Cancer Have to Do With It?

(ZENIT News / Rome, 06.11. 2026) – The traditional Christmas tree in St. Peter’s Square will be decorated this year by sick children receiving treatment in Italian hospitals. The children will create clay ornaments for the branches, reflecting their wishes for life and healing.

The Lene Thun Foundation will create the ceramic ornaments, which are used as a therapeutic exercise and promoted in the Oncology Departments of Italian Pediatric Hospitals.

In a press release, the Governorate of Vatican City State welcomed the initiative of the Lene Thun Foundation entitled «The World I Would Like,» following the line of therapy offered weekly to children with cancer in 36 Italian Health Centers since 2006. The non-profit organization has cared for 80,000 children over these years, whose families have seen the program as a channel of expression that provides them with relief and communication.

The project will be carried out with the support of the Governorate of Vatican City State, through the Directorate of Infrastructure and Services, which this year will plant the approximately 25-meter-tall silver fir tree, from the Cugno dell’Acero forest, donated by the municipality of Terranova di Pollino, in the province of Potenza, Italy.

The Nativity scene will be installed in St. Peter’s Square by the Archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto, the Friends of the Nativity Scene Association of Atessa, the Free Confraternity of Artists, and the Santi Pietro e Paolo Penitentiary Educational Center of Vasto. It will combine the biblical message with rural traditions of Abruzzo in a thatched-roof hut evoking the ancient dwellings of the «pagliarelli» or «pinciare» of the region. The shepherds’ clothing will symbolize simple and sincere faith. A black sheep will also appear in the scene, representing the beloved of divine mercy, lost humanity, the sinner whom Christ comes to redeem, for no one is excluded from the joy of the Savior’s birth.

The Nativity scene to be installed in the Paul VI Audience Hall will be donated by the Viareggio Carnival Foundation and will feature a maritime setting with figures of the sea and fishermen. It gives special attention to the figure of Saint Joseph as guardian of fragility and light. The Three Wise Men are reinterpreted as fishermen who offer gifts from the sea, a sign of community life, hospitality, and generosity.