Christmas trees dazzle at Meldreth festival

Colourful Christmas trees filled a village church at the weekend for its annual Christmas tree festival.

Holy Trinity Church in Meldreth hosted the festival, which saw over 40 local people, clubs and organisations submit trees decorated in a variety of ways.

Church warden Theresa O’Malley was one of the festival’s organisers.

She said: “It was excellent, and most of the visitors who had been before remarked how the festival keeps getting better every year.

The trees looked truly wonderful - each beautifully decorated with an individual theme highlighting their organisation’s particular focus: all very different, but all fantastic and a tribute to the creativity of the those who took part. The croquet club’s effort was decorated by mini croquet balls, while the local craft group knitted all their decorations.

“It’s the 10th time we’ve held the festival and it was a huge success in every respect: busy, buzzing and greatly enjoyed by everyone.”

As well as the trees, Noah the Donkey and Ted the Shetland Pony who were in their stalls outside the church and got lots of attention, especially from younger visitors.

The weekend was rounded off on Sunday evening with a candle-lit carol service in the church.

“The church was packed for the carol service, we had to put out extra chairs,” said Mrs O’Malley. “It was great to see people from the village who don’t usually come to the church, or who hadn’t been for a while. There was a real community spirit.”