What you need to know about Greeley’s 2021 Festival of Trees
Courtesy photo.
By Dan England
About this time last year, Monica Londono had had it with COVID-19.
She’d decided to enter the Festival of Trees after years of helping put on the event, a traditional mainstay of so many Weld County families, over Thanksgiving weekend. She planned to decorate a tree for Seniors Helping Seniors, an organization she co-owned. She had a good idea for a tree. She even thought she might win.
Then the City of Greeley canceled the event — a difficult move for Andrea Haring, who’d just stepped into the role as the city’s special events coordinator that year.
“We were telling all the tree designers we are a go, we are a go, we are a go, and then the numbers got scary,” Haring said. “It was plan it, plan it, plan it and then unplug it, unplug it, unplug it.”
Most tree designers grudgingly understood, but they, like Londono, were understandably upset about it. COVID-19 took their spring, their summer and so many special times. Now it was taking the Festival of Trees, a toasty-warm event that promised to overwhelm them with good feelings, like a Charlie Brown special.
Well, they are a GO this year, Haring said, all caps, and Londono is all over it. As it turns out, last year’s idea still works. She’s making a tree depicting How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Guess who’s the Grinch? You got it: COVID-19.
She’s making ornaments out of styrofoam that look like the virus, at least the way it’s depicted in commercials. The Grinch is on top of the tree, holding a roll of toilet paper and wearing a mask.
“Now he just stole 2020 and 2021,” Londono said. “We are going to win.”
Courtesy photo.
Haring is excited to get it back off the ground. With nearly 40 trees, it should be the same event it was before COVID-19 stole the holidays. There’s still Candy Cane Lane (an area with trees designed by kids) and a gingerbread house contest and a Christmas wreath sale to benefit the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra, only this year the sale will be “bling it yourself,” Haring said, giving patrons the chance to decorate their wreaths.
There are good signs the public, not just Londono, are eager for the return of the event: As of last week, the city had already sold 300 tickets for the Whoville Holiday event that’s become a popular part of the festival, even without any advertising, Haring said, and 70 for the Teddy Bear Bash. The city had also sold 80 tickets online to the festival, again without any advertising. This is the first year the city put the tickets online.
A new event will be Watercolor and Wine on Wednesday evening, Dec. 1, on the Monfort Concert Hall stage. Guests will receive holiday watercolor kits; the option to paint one of two (or both if they’re fast) designs; instructions from Colette Pitcher, owner of the Showcase Art Center, and two glasses of wine along with finger food.
Londono said her tree design remains relevant because the pandemic isn’t over (indeed, Colorado is so bad that health officials are pressuring Gov. Jared Polis to issue a statewide mask mandate, which he has refused to do so far). Her design gives people a chance to laugh about a disease that most of the time inspires talk about death and shutdowns and fights over masks.
“It’s fun to talk about something different than that,” Londono said.
To go
Festival of Trees takes place from Nov. 26 through Dec. 4 at the Union Colony Civic Center, 701 10th Ave. in downtown Greeley. Daily hours vary. Go to GreeleyFestiivalOfTrees.com for a schedule. Adults are $5. Kids and seniors 60 and over are $3. Horse wagon rides are included in the price on Nov. 27 and Dec. 3.
Special events that require limited tickets are the Teddy Bear Bash on Dec. 4, the Whoville Holiday on Nov. 27 and Watercolor and Wine on Dec. 1. Go to ucstars.com to buy tickets this year.