Festival of Trees Christmas Tree (repost from Russisms.com)

Repost from Russisms.com original date October 21st 2008:

We found out today that we can go ahead and do the shotgun shell christmas tree!! This will be a tree honoring my dad from the family and friends. Now it sounds weird BUT anyone that knows my mom, KNOWS that she can do great stuff with gingerbread. The last few years she has donated a christmas gingerbread creation to the Festival for auction and been on the news etc.. There have been dragons and wizards, countless houses, castles and cabins-and even a sailing ship. Anyone that knows my dad knows that he likes to collect stuff. When we started cleaning out his "gun" room we found B O X E S of empty shotgun shells that he planned on reloading and reusing. Mom came up with a genious idea a while ago and decided we can cut the shells, and feather out the ends, and put them together to make branches-and eventually a tree. I will be posting pics of this happening as we do it.




The Festival of Trees is held every year around the first week of December. All and I mean ALL of the proceeds go to the Primary Medical Childrens Center here in Salt Lake City. There are tons of things to see and now there is stuff to do-especially for kids. Even Santa comes. There are things to buy, make and eat. What happens is there is an auction that is held early in the week, by invitation only-where people come to buy the trees etc. The trees stay for display and then go home to the people that paid for them. In some cases the trees are also decorated with stuff under the tree. I believe we will be letting people (you guys) know that we plan to do this and would love for anyone and everyone to participate. Tenatively we would need everything from ideas of stuff to go on and under the tree to money or newly purchased things to decorate the tree and put under the tree. We probably could even use some help. The next few days will be some serious finalizing of what we plan to do. We are excited because this is the first time we have done a tree AND there has never been a tree like this!! (At least that's what the Festival of Trees lady says.)



This last few months has been hard on us, our neighbors, friends and family around us. We are hoping that including ourselves and extending the offer to everyone else might help fill a void that some of us are feeling. There is a need to remember and honor-and through the Festival, we also help not only ourselves we help others-especially children. I would love for people to see how much we loved my dad through the time and effort that it took us to create something that he would find so funny and great- that is after he got over being mad about us cutting up all his shotgun shells! I will be letting you all know how and and exactly what there would be to do or donate. I will also be letting you all know the exact times etc of the Festival (there is a link on the webpage that says our tree) so you can take your families and enjoy this awesome event, and enjoy OUR tree. Thanks for reading-check back for more!