An Annual Christmas Miracle

Today was Day One of the public viewing of the annual Festival of Trees for Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. I've attended multiple times in the past, but I've never been more involved than this year. What an amazing event!

Several months ago, my sisters suggested doing a tree to donate to the event in honor of my niece Heather's sweet conjoined daughters who passed away shortly after birth earlier this year. And so it began. We met to decide what to do (thank goodness they have good ideas and thank goodness for Jessica who can improve on those ideas). We chose a pink tree for the girls. We met to go shopping for the supplies. We found beautiful white and clear ornaments. We met to actually decorate the tree (it takes a long time to put ornaments on then wire each item to the tree!) Cathy and Colleen met to take it to the exhibit hall. We were discovering what a time and money-consuming process this act of love could be. None of those meetings included Jessica's time shopping for the tree or Heather's time making the beautiful quilt to give. Then today we met to go and act as Hostesses at the festival itself. There we stood for four hours, guarding our little section of the room to make sure no wayward children crossed the roped-off barrier or that no mean-spirited soul made off with any thing of value. Mostly we just got to chat with each other and an occasional passerby who was looking at the trees.


In the course of those four hours, I had a lot of time to stand and think about what we were a part of. I'm including a picture in here looking toward one half of the hall. There was another equal half the other direction. There I was in the midst of a miracle happening all around me. For weeks and months now, hundreds of other little groups did what we did with our little tree, then it all came together. Hundreds of trees were decorated and donated as gifts of love. Hundreds of people showed up last night and paid extraordinary prices for those trees so the money could "go to the kids" at the hospital. Hundreds of volunteers like us stood there today and will do it again tomorrow and the next day. Hundreds more will wrap those trees up and deliver them to their purchasers this weekend. There were crafts and treats and performers. There are untold numbers of people and untold dollars being given purely out of love and kindness. I've heard that this event raised between 1.5 and 2 million dollars last year. Wow! That's a pretty great way to start the Christmas season. I think I'll do it again next year!