How to Decorate a Christmas Tree
For Display & Transporting
| The Decorating Layers | Tree Pictures |
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Behind Trees Wiring Trees On Top Divide & Concur Garland |
This is impossible to learn by reading, seeing, hearing or research. You have to experience this for yourself. The ''Festival of Trees''© trees are donations to Primary Children's Hospital. They are auctioned off, then displayed for a week. A typical Festival will raise near a million dollars, and have 30,000+ visitors. The most successful tree I've ever done was a Festival tree. It was small. But it was the one I'd worked the longest hours on. It displayed the most important ornament I've ever made. Most of that summer had been spent sewing seed beads on a pink voile tree skirt with a wide ruffle. The pattern was an intricate Russian counted stitch. It was easy to lose track of the position of the beads, even with a counting mesh darned underneath. I also HAND stitched a 20'' fully jointed cloth doll. The finger joints alone took me 3 hours. Her hourglass figure and long glossy ringlets were so elegant, falling over a low slung Gibson Girl's presentation gown. The train of the dress was also beaded in crystal. Her gloves were re-embroidered lace from my sister's bridal gown.
But the tree's success wasn't a result of anything I had worked so hard on. Ten minutes before we loaded up for the Salt Palace, my mother remarked, ''Why don't we dedicate the tree to Kay?'' Kay Simpson was the neighbor who'd been Mom's friend for years. She'd shared much; She'd loved much. She'd forced Mom to go to the hospital once, and saved her life. Kay's cancer was brutal. Death was slow and painful.
I agreed. It was a great afterthought. So Mom went across the street to borrow a picture. Memorial pictures are not sold with the trees. They are returned to the families after the Festival of Trees is over. It was the only picture the children had of their mother as an adult. I hastily taped it to pink construction paper, lettered it ''Kay Simpson, Friend and Neighbor''. Then I spliced on an old greeting card, which read, ''Love is the Best Gift.'' That was Kay alright. Time elapsed was less than four minutes. And I went to the Salt Palace for the regular agony and torment of creating the perfect tree. It took five hours just to wire the lights on the tree. After completion of the tree, I never thought about the little, quickly constructed, paper sign.
However, Kay's mother was at that Festival. It was exactly a year after her daughter's death. She was grieving so heavily that her children took her there to try to cheer her up. They didn't know the tree was there. Kay's mother wandered among the trees. She became tired. As they were leaving, one of her children spotted the glossy curls, and sparkling train of the Gibson Girl doll. Before they left, they wandered over to the Tabletop section of the Festival, because their mother liked making dolls. (Pix of doll being fitted in pink satin is on site. Click on ''Background'' link below.)I was told that when she saw the little sign, her amazement and emotions were indescribable. Someone she had never met had remembered and honored her daughter. After all the work I spent on that tree, the most important thing, the only essential thing - was a little paper sign.