The Tomorrow Project at A Festival of Christmas Trees

By Lois Day (Clinical Support Worker)

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… at least for the Derbyshire bereavement team. This year we are celebrating at A Festival of Christmas Trees, held at Chesterfield Parish Church (more commonly known as the Crooked Spire). Every year, the Spire is filled with Christmas trees, each one decorated by local people, groups and shops — from scout to guide groups, from schools to high street stores, from accountants to museums and many more besides.

We thought long and hard about what our contribution should look like and how it could best represent the work of The Tomorrow Project in the local community. In keeping with the TP colours, we decided to go all-out with a black and gold theme.

True to the Christmas spirit, we busied ourselves like little elves preparing some very special Christmas baubles. We also asked our wonderful clients to share a special photo, memory or message to put on the tree and we had some great responses to kick-start our activities.

When the day arrived to install the tree in the church, we headed off with arms full of decorations. Tom was assigned the very important responsibility of Light Master and we had great fun faffing around with the lights and decorations. I’m sure you’ll agree that our display has really come together.

Visitors to the church are also encouraged to add their own special message or memory to the tree. Like so many of our clients, it grows and gets stronger with each day that passes. And as you can see, since we put up the tree on Friday, more baubles and messages have been added.

The Festival of Christmas Trees is on until Sunday 3^rd December, so there’s still time to visit our wonderful contribution and all the other trees in the church!