A great experience!

A year and a half ago I had a dream about a Christmas tree that was decorated in symbolism of Lehi's Vision. It has always been a dream of mine to do the Festival of trees and create something beautiful for charity. My sister's mother in law donates to someone every year to make a tree and I thought why not to us? So I asked my sister if she would do it with me and ask her MIL if she would sponsor us. She said yes and gave us a budget.

It was so much fun! We loved shopping together and laughing about the things that didn't work out. There were some things that we imagined one way and it just wasn't possible so we had to re think that idea.

All in all this is what we ended up with!

It is a 12 ft tree with an iron rod leading up from the bottom, past the rivers to the tree of life at the very top. On the tree are ornaments of fruit, ceramic statuettes of things that help you hold to the rod, and signs that explain what things are. It really turned out beautifully!

Some of my favorite ornaments!

This top was a wow factor. I guess that the newest thing is to have branches on top of your tree instead of a star or angel. Which I think turned out really perfect for our theme. This is the tree of life!

So it was our first time and we chose a tree that was way too big, so we couldn't put it together until we were there. So this baby took us the full 2 days to set up. (That includes a time when we had to tip it over and change out the stand!) We actually snuck back in after time was up to finish the last 10 minutes of it, but all the craziness was worth it. It was so amazing to be in that room as see all the designers working and making such a magical place!

Our Tree did so very well! It was not put into the live auction because they never put in a tree that has first year designers, but by the end they were wishing that they had. They are begging my sister to do it again next year.

So with the silent auction they have the value of the tree as a starting off point. It was $2,100. Then they have 15 lines for people to bid on. Then there is a Buy It Now price if people want to pay top dollar for it and avoid the stress of bidding. The first day our tree sold for top dollar, $3,000. Then there were two other people who wanted it and asked the administration if they could still bid on it higher than the top dollar price! (That is why they wished that they had put it into the live auction, because they had to turn those people down to follow the rules.)

Our budget from our sponsor was $1,000. So we had the second biggest increase from spending to purchase price percentage wise!

This really was a once in a lifetime experience and I am so glad that I got to share it with my sister. She really is amazing! Thanks Simcah!