A Christmas Tree Festival

I have been a little under the weather the past week or so with a cold that seems to think that I am a fabulous host. Under normal circumstances, I'd be absolutely flattered to be considered the hostess with the mostess, but given that it's a cold that's loving me, I feel a little insulted. Anyway, as per usual, I digress. The point I was intending to make is that I really didn't feel up to traipsing around the county to visit the Dickensian Festival in Rochester, as I had intended to do. However, all was not lost because my church had a Christmas Tree Festival. Not quite the same, I know, but having never heard of such a thing, I was super keen to visit and find out what it was all about, and well, who doesn't love a Christmas Tree.


The Festival ran over two days and as well as the fabulously decorated trees, there were various other things going on including  live music and a film in the evening, so it was a real community event. Oh and not forgetting a chocolate Nativity on the Sunday (I really should have visited that).

I managed to persuade Dr. BD to accompany me. He was a little dubious about the whole thing, thinking that I would do my usual thing of spending hours drinking tea and chatting, but I promised I wouldn't and as it happens there were only a handful of people there that I actually knew. All the leaflets everyone had distributed to let the local people know what was going on clearly worked, which is fabulous.

I really do love my church, it is so cosy and welcoming and when we visited on Saturday it was no different. Well I say that, it was very different, we don't usually have Christmas trees hanging around, nor do we have soup and cream teas being served, though there is usually an abundance of cake.

So without further ado, I present to you the Christmas Trees...

I absolutely love the tree with the cakes and sandwiches hanging from it. Most of those decorations were hand knitted.

This little tree, may look a tad random covered in flip flops and lollipops, but this represents our Street Pastors. If you've not come across them before they are Christian volunteers who go out on the streets of our towns and cities helping out those who have over indulged on alcohol. They hand out bottles of water, lollipops and, for ladies struggling in high heels, flip flops. They also help people to get home safely by getting cabs for them and just generally looking after people.

My lovely friend K made this tree for the mum and toddler group that she runs. I love that she has done something completely different.

Somehow the stained glass windows look even prettier with all the trees at the front of the church.

I really enjoyed my first Christmas Tree Festival and was amazed by the thought and effort everyone had put into their trees. I'd love to do one next year, but looking at this years offerings, I think I'm going to have to raise my standards considerably.