Festival of Trees rings in the Christmas season

This year's theme for the annual Phillips County Historical Society's Christmas Tree Festival is A Christmas Wish, and what the historical society's members are wishing for this holiday season is for you to join them for the fun, food and festivities.

"It is shaping up to be a wonderful night," said Kay Hould, PC Historical Society member. "Everything looks wonderful and we are excited to see everyone."

The event gets underway this Thursday, December 1, at 6:30 p.m. at the Phillips County Museum and admission is free. In the meantime, if you're looking for an earlier Christmas fix, a total of 30 Christmas trees, table runners and center pieces and wreaths are on display at the museum for your viewing pleasure. Each of the items on display were decorated or created by community members and businesses and have been set up in the Museum for visitors to vote on. The voting is conducted by visitors purchasing tokens and and placing them in the bucket in front of their favorite choices. The voting commences during the Festival of Trees Open House this Thursday before a winner is crowned.

"There are 30 entries this year and without going back and checking every year, I'd say this is the most we have had," Hould said. "Every single entry is just phenomenal. They are all so unique and different, the turnout is really wonderful."

Throughout the open house, silent auction bids can be made on all of the Christmas Trees and other goodies before the auction -- emceed by Greg Kielb with auctioneer Cliff Rustad taking the bids -- begins at 7:30 p.m.

A total of 12 mini trees are on display for the night and will be auctioned off by Rustad. New this year to the displays is a barn quilt – fashioned in American flag red, white and blue – created by Laura Pankratz.

"It's amazing what people come up with," Hould said.

Hould said that if the winners (or potential winners) of the mini Christmas trees aren't sure exactly where they will put the trees in their homes that she has a solution.

"We can assist in finding a home for them," she said. "We have different sources out there and we can easily find a home for the trees by gifting them to someone who would really appreciate and cherish them."

Hould added that if trees were donated by the winners to people of the community, those donations could be made anonymously if needed.

The night will also include live music -- confirmed musicians thus far include Warren Taylor and Malta High School's Bella Mackey on flute -- and there will be enough food and drinks -- both hot and cold -- to feed a village.

"We hope to see everyone there to share our Christmas Wish with us," Hould said.