Monday, 9 December 2024

Blogmas Day Nine - The Festival of Trees

 


Each year our local church St Thomas', hosts the towns Christmas Tree Festival, with hot drinks, home made cakes and a raffle to boost church funds, it is usually very well attended.

The trees are all made and decorated by the town's various organisations and clubs.


The armed forces club decorated this one ...


... with the little twist of the three wise men being ousted by an Airman, a Soldier and a Sailor.


Our Heritage Society's tree had little photos of the town through the ages as well as baubles.


The infant school had a tree made from recycled pallets and the branches were made from each child's handprint.


This is the tree by the Garstang Bloomers, a group who keep our town looking beautiful by tending all the flower beds and looking after the War Memorial all through the year.  Once again this year our town won the national Gold Medal in the Small Town category thanks to their efforts.


The Knit and Natter group put together this lovely 'tree'.  All the little Santa heads and hats, the Christmas puddings and the snowman heads contain Chocolate Oranges which are given out to children.  The group do the knitting and the townspeople buy the chocolate oranges from our local sweet shops and market stalls.


It was a lovely way to spend an hour on a blustery day.  

Drinking coffee, eating homemade cake, trying our luck at the raffle and then voting for the tree we each preferred.  It is just a friendly vote to see which tree is the most popular ... it's very hard to choose and there were many more than these few trees that I photographed, as you can see from this overhead shot that someone shared on Facebook.


πŸŽ„πŸŽ„πŸŽ„  Sue xx  πŸŽ„πŸŽ„πŸŽ„


18 comments:

  1. Christmas tree festivals are lovely events to attend. And the results are always very creative. I'm hoping to go to our nearest festival, next weekend. πŸŽ„

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is always a very special atmosphere isn't there. :-)

      Delete
  2. Thanks for posting the Christmas trees Sue. It really made me smile and think warm thoughts about humans. There is so much sadness in the world that it is hard sometimes to be optimistic about our beautiful world. June x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have to look to the small things and the good people, and try and ignore the world outside occasionally, if only for the sake of our mental health. If each and everyone of us helped those nearest to us, surely it would spread given half a chance. Well we can hope. xx

      Delete
  3. I adore this kind of thing. They used to have a tree festival each year in our village church in Cookley and I do miss it. What a lovely idea to give out chocolate oranges to the children :)
    Angie x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is a very special event, and this year I have just found out they raised almost £400 for charity and church funds, AND as the admission price was 'something for the Foodbank' they managed to fill a few shelves of their foodbank storeroom too.

      Delete
  4. They all look amazing but I especially love the knitted one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alan was very smitten with that one too, that got his vote. :-)

      Delete
  5. Never been to a Christmas tree festival, they look stunning. I'd love to go and see the big Festival of Light shows at Longleat or other similar places, but they cost so much to get in.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I might have liked something like that years ago, these days with health issues I am happier to support and go to the smaller events more local to me. Longleat is spectacular though isn't it, hopefully they are filming it again for television for next year.

      Delete
  6. Another lovely Festival of Trees and thanks for sharing. Catriona

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There seems to be quite a few on all around the UK. πŸŽ„πŸŽ„πŸŽ„

      Delete
  7. 'My' tree festival was bigger than yours !!!
    The village where I lived before now tried a festival one year and I went to look- I seem to remember they had about 4 trees - they've never done another one since- sadly.
    I think the Stow one was the best it's been in the years I've been back in Mid Suffolk, if I go for a coffee there after Christmas it will look very bare and empty.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Boasting again. πŸ˜„πŸ€£

      What a shame they didn't continue with the village one, these sort of things can take a couple of years to get going.

      Delete
  8. How wonderful to see so many beautiful and original treesπŸŽ„ It would be hard to pick a favourite! Sadly, I've never been to a festival of trees, as far as I know I've never seen any advertised or mentioned here ☹️ Such a lovely idea ❤️

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The church setting makes it a lovely experience. xx

      Delete
  9. Your tree festival looks lovely. So many trees all differently decorated. I really like the one made by small children.

    God bless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are all so unique aren't they. ❤️

      Delete

Anyone may leave a comment, but please keep it nice and keep it friendly ... or you will be deleted. I have no time whatsoever for nastiness or trolls, but differing opinions are usually welcome.

If you find you have to comment Anonymously for technical reasons please always leave your first name at the end of your comments. I'm sorry but comments with no name will be deleted.