As we complete the celebration of Thanksgiving and head on to Christmas (I noticed some stores skipped Thanksgiving!), we took our first visit to the Festival of Trees in Clearwater, Florida.  This was a wonderful exhibit of fully decorated Christmas trees and wreaths.  As we walked into the area at the Long Center for this exhibit, I quickly realized we could spend all day here!  First glance, how to capture the wonderful beauty of these trees?  There must be close to 100 trees, some small as 2 feet, others over 8 feet - it's all different themes - find one you like!

We arrived on Friday morning, all the trees and wreaths are for sale - as this is the first day of the event, just a few hours into the beginning of the event, several trees were already sold!  That's a great start as this is a benefit for ARC.  I saw several trees decorated with a patriotic theme - here's one of them.

Then as I began to think, how best to capture some of these details of the trees, I started focusing on the various ornaments on these trees that were so wonderful decorated with various themes.  Yes - there was one that had the 'smiley face' and different ornaments on that theme.

Some that were more victorian, some that featured Santa like below - many people may not have noticed the smaller details as we settled down to photograph them.

I think some of my favorites are the elves, they are cute and remind me of my childhood when we had a few little elf decorations.

Above all, we wish each of you....(Happy Holidays as the sign says below)

For more photos from the Festival of Trees, check out our gallery for this event, http://www.vpshoots.com/festivaloftrees