Simply on Sunday

It’s rainy and cold here, but we’re just a few days away from Thanksgiving, and a much-anticipated visit from my cousin and his family. This will be the third year that they’ve joined us for Thanksgiving, and we always have so much fun together!

Last week, I went to the annual Festival of Trees at the Carolina Hotel in Pinehurst. This is a huge fundraiser for the Sandhills Children’s Center and features over 200 trees and wreaths that are auctioned off. Seeing the Carolina Hotel decorated for Christmas is a treat in and of itself:

The trees range from tabletop size to full-size and are themed. Local businesses and other organizations put them together. We had one from our kids’ school and another from my daughter’s ballet studio; there’s obviously great community involvement. Wednesday night, when I attended, was “Girls’ Night Out” and it was mostly ladies although they still let the guys in!

There were some really creative themes among the trees, like this pink and purple breast cancer awareness tree:

This dog-themed tree would have Sunny going crazy for those tennis-ball ornaments:

My husband would probably have felt much the same way as Sunny if he had been there to see this gentlemen’s tree, decked out with bowties, cigars, and miniatures of scotch and bourbon! I might have to do something similar next year in our upstairs “man cave.”

Most trees had a pile of related gifts around them; these were all included in the auction.

There was, of course, lots of fun stuff for kids…

But plenty for the grownups, too. Isn’t this a creative idea for a jewelry “tree” from my favorite little downtown Southern Pines shop, Monkee’s?

Our school created this amazing Star Wars tree:

I forgot to snap a picture of the ballet studio’s tabletop tree, but of course it was Nutcracker-themed!

Here are a few more of my favorites. Sock monkeys!

This dress-form tree was just as lovely as the ones I’ve seen on Pinterest:

And of course, this preppy tree was very tempting for me…mostly because of the goodies underneath it!

It was such a fun night and the hall was packed, so I’m sure that their fundraising goals were well met. And I know I left with some great ideas for decorating!