My Tree on the Avenue

For the past few years the local library has offered their “Avenue of Trees” event for the holidays. They invite the public to bring decorated Christmas trees for display in the building from the weekend after Thanksgiving until the weekend after New Year’s.  Each year a growing number of individuals and groups bring trees of every size, color, and theme,  and turn that library into a Christmas forest!

The first year of the event, I think it was 2006, I was still at Head Start and we put together a small tree with crayon bundles and small wooden alphabet blocks as ornaments. It was simple and sweet and a good way to advertise for us.

The next year I took Grace to the library one day, not remembering about the trees, and she was entranced. She would have been just almost 3 and we spent a long time going from tree to tree, touching what was allowed.

This year I decided to take a tree of my own. My theme is “In Loving Memory” and I made ornaments with photos of loved ones who have passed on – my parents, my brother Arlan, all of our grandparents, and some of the great-grandparents.

The ornaments are photos sandwiched between two pieces of microscope glass, then soldered around the outside. While soldering, I attached a jump ring to the top so the ornament could be hung with a ribbon.

This is the wedding photo of Greg’s grandparents, Fred and Myrtle Wolfe:

My dad’s high school senior photo:

Mom when she was 15:

There are only 10 soldered ornaments and it’s a 4-ish foot tree, so I filled in with plastic silver ornaments and silver/white wired ribbon. A small plastic topper and some white fleece around the base finished it off.

I’ve had several compliments on the tree and a woman from Exeter called the last week wondering about the ornaments and where I got those frames. She said if I ever want to make her a dozen or so, give her a call. :o)

My tree is in the foyer of the library, and time was short the day it was set up, so I’ve not been to see the rest of the Avenue for this year. Perhaps this week? The twins will be here for the afternoon on Thursday, so maybe we’ll stop in after preschool and take a look. If so, I’ll share our favorites with you!