Another event that I went to last week but didn’t get the chance to write about was the annual Festival of Trees at the Western Development Museum. I don’t usually like these kind of events because they’re too crowded and loud. The winter holiday season is so stressful as it is too so I try to avoid the chaos as much as I can. But I have to admit that this is one of the few events that I look forward to every year. When I was a kid, the choirs and bands would usually perform during the lunch hour. But since I moved back to Saskatoon, my mom has been getting free tickets due to her annual donation to one of the local hospitals and we’ve been going almost every year. And this year, my dad joined us too.
Essentially, all this event is is an excuse to decorate, show off, and sell decorated Christmas trees. It seems a little shameless and commercial on the surface but it is quite beautiful and you can’t deny that it gets everyone into the Christmas spirit! Besides, it does go to a good cause and the schools to have a chance to show off a bit too. But I’ll go into that later. The tress are always so impressive. Even the worst ones are still awesome and beautiful. I love the crazy ideas that some of them have. Unfortunately, many of the pictures I took didn’t turn out (I hate using the flash but camera ‘giggle’ is something you then have to be extra careful of which I wasn’t that night). But here are a few of the trees and their decorations that we saw.
Another feature of the Festival of Trees is the gingerbread houses. If you don’t get hungry looking at these, there’s something wrong with you!
But I think that the best part of the festival is the school section. This is a chance for the local elementary and secondary schools to join in. But their job is a little different. They have, not just the theme of ‘Christmas’ to work with but ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ has to come into play as well. Some entries aren’t that great but others are wonderful.
And, of course, I can’t end this post without saying thank you to the Western Development Museum for hosting the event again this year. I’ll have to go there one day when there’s no event going on and take some pictures for everyone because it’s simply a wonderful museum of Saskatchewan history. But I had to share these photos now because there’s something about seeing these decorations against the backdrop of old ‘Boomtown’ that really gets this grumpy curmudgeon in the holiday spirit!