Festival of the Trees: A Heart of Gold Christmas Is Coming!

On August 31, our Festival of the Trees committee will hold its first official meeting. During this meeting, we will finalize our first-year theme and begin bringing all of the special activities planned for this event to life.

The inaugural Festival of the Trees: A Heart of Gold Christmas will be held on December 4, 2026, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

The Heart Behind the Festival

We chose to hold this fundraiser near Tobi’s birthday because Christmas represents so much of what she gave to others—kindness, generosity, joy and love.

We know that many families in our community are facing day-to-day challenges that make it difficult to experience the happiness and excitement of Christmas morning. Our long-term goal is to help ensure that every little girl and boy in Lampasas has a wrapped present to open and that families in need can enjoy a warm meal on Christmas Day.

We know this is a big dream, but we hope that with the continued support of our community, we will move closer to that goal every year.

We would also love to deliver sweet treats to our local first responders who will be working on Christmas Day and unable to spend the holiday at home with their families.

The Decorated Trees

The beautifully decorated Christmas trees will be the heart of the festival, and local businesses, organizations, churches, families and community members will help make them possible.

Each tree sponsor will make a financial sponsorship contribution and provide a fully decorated Christmas tree to be displayed and offered during the event. Sponsors may decorate their trees in any theme they choose. A tree could represent a business, follow our annual festival theme, celebrate a favorite Christmas tradition or simply feature a theme the sponsor loves. The sky is truly the limit!

Sponsors will bring their completed trees to us before the event, and we will provide signage recognizing the person, family, business or organization that donated each one.

Members of the community will then have the opportunity to purchase or bid on the trees. A tree may be purchased for your own home or gifted to a local family, church, bank, hotel, school, business or other community organization.

Each tree will have a Purchase It Now option, along with the opportunity to participate in our silent auction. Bidding will be managed through an app, allowing guests to continue following their favorite tree and placing bids even after leaving the event. Bidding will remain open until the silent auction officially closes.

After the event, our volunteers will carefully pack each tree and arrange for pickup or delivery the following morning.

A Night Filled With Christmas Magic

We hope the Festival of the Trees will become a fun holiday tradition for the entire family. Some of the activities we are working to bring to life include:

• Visits and photographs with Santa and Mrs. Claus

• A Dear Santa letter-writing station

• Gingerbread cookie decorating

• A hot cocoa bar filled with delicious toppings

• Wooden ornament painting for children and adults

• Local vendors offering Christmas shopping

• On-site gift wrapping by one of Santa’s elves

• Light foods and refreshments

• An Angel Tree for those who would like to provide a gift for a local child

• Christmas carols performed by local church youth groups

• Beautifully decorated trees available through the silent auction and Purchase It Now options

We especially hope Santa and Mrs. Claus will stop by to meet the children and collect all of the Dear Santa letters written that evening. Maybe Mrs. Claus will even bring a few of her famous gingerbread cookies for the children to decorate!

Help Us Bring the Festival to Life

An event like this takes many helping hands, and there will be a place for everyone who wants to get involved.

Volunteer opportunities will include:

• Event setup and decorating

• Event breakdown and cleanup

• Carefully packing the trees after the festival

• Assisting with tree pickup and delivery

• Running the wooden ornament-painting station

• Helping with the hot cocoa and cookie-decorating areas

• Welcoming guests and handing out event information

• Keeping the refreshments and finger-food areas stocked and clean

• Assisting Santa and Mrs. Claus

• Helping with the Dear Santa letter station

• Supporting the silent auction and tree displays

Volunteers helping with setup will be welcome to arrive as early as 2:00 p.m. on December 4. We hope to have the event and cleanup completely wrapped up by midnight.

We are also looking for:

• Local vendors interested in selling Christmas gifts and merchandise

• Businesses, families, churches and organizations interested in sponsoring and decorating a tree

• Church youth groups or other local groups interested in singing Christmas carols

• A local photographer who can document the entire event and help with Santa and Mrs. Claus photographs

• Community members interested in volunteering in any area

  
  

If you would like to help, please complete the interest form below and select the area in which you would most like to participate. Submitting the form does not require you to commit to everything—it simply helps us learn how you may be interested in joining us.

We truly hope the Festival of the Trees becomes a joyful holiday outing where families can make memories, experience a little Christmas magic and come together to give back to our community.

No matter how old you become, we hope you never grow too old to search the skies on Christmas Eve.