L-R: Tom Pickering, Shelley Gaylord, and Chelsea Bush of the ReStore, decorating a tree for the 2013 Festival of Trees.

Guadalupe Montessori School is again presenting the Festival of Trees this holiday season, and is looking for the artsy, the crafty, the innovative and the inventive of the Silver City and Grant County community to sign up to decorate a live tree for sale at the annual winter extravaganza.

Local artists, craftspeople, business and organizations can sign up to decorate a tree - decorators provide a $10 donation and decorations for their tree. Guadalupe Montessori School (GMS) classrooms also decorate trees. "Being a decorator is a great way to get your artistry or your business out to the public eye," comments GMS Board Member Jessa Tumposky, "and it's a lot of fun to run with any kind of zany, beautiful decorating theme you can imagine!" Last year, trees were decorated with various beautiful and clever themes, and included decorations such as hardware, bike parts, clay pieces and yucca star pods. Silver City's Power and Light letterpress printer provides signs on which decorator's names are prominently displayed along with the name of the buyer of the tree.

Interested in decorating? Please contact Guadalupe Montessori School at 575-388-3343, or at events@guadalupemontessori.org.

Trees will be decorated in late November, and ready for sale at the Grand Opening of the Festival of Trees on Friday, November 28th, also known as Buy Local Day. The Silver City Food Coop is sponsoring the space for this year's festival, at 614 N. Bullard Street (the old Yada Yada Yarn building) from November 28-December 6, 2014.

The Festival of Trees has a long history in Silver City-it was previously put on by the local Mormon church and by Penny Park, but until last year was on hiatus since 2007. GMS decided to revive the festival last year as a fun community event with the hopes of increasing funding for the school. The Festival of Trees is a fundraiser of Guadalupe Montessori School (GMS). The school has served the community for over thirty years with high quality Montessori early childhood and elementary education. Through this event, GMS will raise funds to serve more students and families, and strengthen the school. For more information about the school, visit www.guadalupemontessori.org.