This year, for the first time, we were very excited to take part in the Barnstaple Christmas Tree Festival!

The festival was hosted by the St Peter and St Mary Magdalene Parish Church in the centre of Barnstaple, and featured over thirty Christmas trees all decorated and sponsored by local people, businesses and families.

Members of the public had the opportunity each day to go into the church and view the Christmas Trees and vote for their favourites! There were so many beautiful Christmas trees, all decorated in different and unique ways from a range of different businesses, community groups and more!

Our Christmas tree featured our mascot, Moon, taking pride of place at the top of the tree, sparkling blue lights (to reflect our brand colours!) and a range of decorations all created by children within our setting. Some children chose to make salt-dough decorations of different shapes and painted different colours, some children painted cardboard 'baubles,' some made tree and star shaped decorations with coloured lollipop sticks and sparkles and some children created paper chains. The decorations were a true reflection of our setting's focus on process over product – we value, encourage and celebrate the children’s authentic and unique ideas and creations.

As well as entering our own tree into the festival, we also had the opportunity of taking some of the children to visit all the trees! We walked into town, and the children had a wonderful time looking at all the different trees and decorations, and of course they loved seeing their decorations on display too!

At the end of the festival, we were also delighted to have been awarded third place in the 'Mayor's Award' which is a fantastic achievement for our first entry! The Mayor reportedly loved the fact that all of the decorations had been created by the children!

We can't wait to enter another tree next year!