Christmas Tree Festival

Today's post is going to be unashamedly Christmassy and full of photos!

We started at Bunny village (yes, really - it's called Bunny!) Christmas Fair. It was inside the church where half the nave was given over to a fabulous array of stalls and the other half to tables and chairs for folks to have refreshments. We went because J is part of a string quartet formed as an offshoot of the Loughborough Schools Area Orchestra - they were playing for about half an hour over lunch.

Then we went to the Community Christmas Tree Festival in All Saint's Church, Loughborough. There were 100 trees listed in the programme from a wide variety of community groups and businesses. The Guide and Scout movements were well represented, as were choirs, local schools and other faith groups. Politicians, the Council, the University, U3A, support and craft groups all had trees too. It's an event that opens your eyes to the various groups and official bodies that play a role in our community, including several that I was completely unaware of.

Anyway, here are a few of my favourite trees...

The NIBS (Nanpantan Improving Body of Scribblers) Tree - tiny book covers, pens and notebooks. There were a couple of other book-ish groups represented; one had book covers and scrolls of words, the other had focused on places in the world as their notice said 'Read a book - see the world!'

My church's tree - with over 50 handmade stars
created by members of the congregation.

The Wicked Brewery, Hathern

From L to R: Co-op Funeral Directors (they wear top hats, so the tree is decorated in top hats and candy canes), a Brownie group (toilet roll squirrels in the tree, hedgehogs and badgers at the bottom) and a tree full of owls - think that was a Brownie group again.

Celebrating 100 years of Ladybird Books

A Ladder tree..

Recycling and upside-down...

1st L'boro Scouts - T is a scout, J helps out as an Explorer.
It's an upside-down camp tree.

The lovely Delice Deli tree - remember I held Granny's launch there?

A tree full of spoons...knitted, pottery, wire, or straight out of the cutlery
drawer but decorated with wool, ribbons and beads.
Created by the High School.

 

Another Scout tree - the top half is tent pegs, painted in the different group colours
and with the names of the members written on them. There are a few more still
to be added so that everyone is represented...

This tree was awesome - I think it was a nature group. All the decorations were made from sycamore seeds (the stars) or melon seeds (the red flowers).

Snowflakes - all made of tatting by the Charnwood Tatters.

 

The Tree of Remembrance.

See where the coloured tags start on the Remembrance Tree, about half-way down? Every single one contains at least one name, of someone who has died but is remembered by a visitor to the festival...

There were so many other trees I could've included, but this blog post would have been far too long if I had! Best to go and experience it for yourself - the festival runs 'til tomorrow, 5pm.