First Christmas Tree festival brings together four Windsor churches

Organisers of the first Christmas tree festival by four Windsor churches were 'amazed and delighted’ with the creative entries.

Around 70 daily visitors attended the inaugural festive event at Holy Trinity Parish and Garrison Church on Claremont Road and Trinity Place in Windsor.

The event was organised in collaboration with members of All Saints’ Church in Frances Road, St John the Baptist Parish Church in the High Street and St Stephen and St Agnes Parish Church in Vansittart Road.

With a recycling theme, participants were encouraged to use old trees and decorations, or even create trees and decorations from other objects.

Churchwarden and event organiser, Penny Wells said she was inspired after visiting a Christmas tree festival in Maidenhead last year.

“Everybody does it slightly differently and because it was new for us, we decided to keep the event fairly low-key. But we ended up with 22 trees so we were delighted,” she said.

“We decided to go with the theme of recycling so we had a really interesting selection. One tree was a pile of hymn books done by the choir, which was fantastic. We had a really lovely variety.

“We thought the recycling theme was important to show how things could be reused in creative ways, and it certainly seemed to work.”

She said in the future, she hopes the tree creations will be donated to charities and organisations around the borough.

“I’m amazed at how good the event was because obviously when you start something new, it’s quite hard work. But everybody mucked in and helped so I really feel it was something that brought the four churches together,” she added.

The church was open to visitors in the afternoons and evenings between Friday, December 8 and Monday, December 11 with refreshments provided by members of the congregation.

Proceeds collected from the event will go towards the Save the Children Gaza Emergency Appeal.