Lobby Clean Up from Festival of Trees

After helping to set up the lobby at the Festival of Trees, we thought it might be fun and interesting to help take it all down. We headed to the South Towne Expo center one more time, at 9:30 p.m. and waited until we could begin the work.

I'd thought setting up the lobby was hard work, and it was; but this was more labor intensive.

We had to wrap the trees in saran wrap, and it needed to be tight, so we had to do it once and then again really tight. We dragged the trees to the pallets and secured them for use next year.

We were there until 2:00 a.m. and I was exhausted when it was said and done.

My favorite part of this was seeing all the trees that had been on display and purchased, being wrapped and prepared to be delivered to the purchasers of the trees.

Festival of Trees 2011

I love the Festival of Trees. I love going to see the different tree decorations. I'm definitely not one who goes to find ideas, though. I just like seeing the trees!

I do not, however, like people...crowds of people drive me crazy! So when we go, we go on Saturday at 10:00 (right at opening) when there are the fewest amount of people possible.

These trees confused me a bit:
I didn't understand the tire tree, but if you work in a tire shop, I guess it would be perfect, right. It's for a very targeted audience.
I like pink...and I get the theme of Neon Trees, it's just not my cup of tea, I guess.

My favorite trees:
I fell in love with this Mad Hatter tree. I thought the Mad Hatter doll was perfect on the tree. There was a tea set as part of this tree and everything came together so well.
I loved the tree topper for this Up House tree. It was too perfect!
At first I wasn't such a fan of the silver and gold tree. It was one that literally stopped me in my tracks and I found that I was mesmerized by it...I still can't say what it is that I like about it, but I do like it:
This 50s tree was to stinkin' cute!! The cut out figure made the tree. Without it, I wouldn't have liked it as much:
There were amazing gingerbread houses and mini trees and wreaths. I had a moment with a lady who was appalled by my speaking to her. I had no choice but to say something to her about her lack of holiday spirit. She still wasn't happy, but it made me laugh.

Festival of Trees Decorating

One way I stay busy (as if I need to add another way to my life) is from Meetup.com. I belong to a couple of groups, one of which is a volunteer group. One of the activities I joined was decorating this year's Festival of Trees Lobby. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. I will definitely do it again next year.

We arrived in the morning to a very cold building where trucks were pulling into the main building from the opposite side and setting up their trees. Tables and walls went up in a matter of minutes. There were volunteers from all sorts of groups. It was pretty impressive to see.

Heather, the coordinator for PCMC, helped direct us to the pallets holding the saran wrapped Christmas trees. We pulled them off the pallets and 'fluffed' them up. After some fluffing, we placed and arranged them onto the large platforms.

We were all pretty tired when it was all completed, but it was really fun. I was so happy to have my mom with me.

Here are some of the pictures I took between working on trees:

Festival of Trees 2010

Yesterday Eric and I went to the Festival of Trees bright and early; right at opening. I'm so glad we did because, it got incredibly busy about an hour later - as we were leaving.

There didn't seem to be as many trees as there has been in the past, the ones that were there were really nice, as usual. Here are my favorites this year.

Cookie Monster Tree:
Surfer Santa:
BYU versus Utah Tree:
Pink Fifties Tree:

My favorite wreath was this little cutie:

My favorite gingerbread house was this one. I liked it, not because it was the best made one, but because it was a style that I really liked:

What would Christmas be without the Nightmare Before Christmas?

The rest of my pictures from the Festival of Trees are found here.