The magic of musical theatre will be celebrated at this year’s Bedford Christmas Tree Festival as, once again, the annual event will feature over 60 decorated trees within St Paul’s church.
Each tree is decorated by a different school, charity, business or community organisation and the fund-raising event regularly attracts over 4,000 visitors. In 2021, Bedford Christmas Tree Festival raised over £13,000 shared by Bedford Hospital Charity & Friends and St Paul’s church.
The much-anticipated event launches at 10.30am on Wednesday 30 November, with Bedford Pipe Band and Bedfordshire’s Lord Lieutenant, Sue Lousanda, leading the first visitors inside.
This year, visitors will be entertained by over 30 choirs and instrumentalists throughout the week, filling the magnificent space with festive cheer.
As ever, the Festival signals a magical – and this year, a musical – start to the Christmas season with the twinkling lights on the trees against the backdrop of Bedford’s historic town centre church.
Festival Concert
The annual Festival Concert takes place on Friday 2 December at 7.30pm and features the Woburn Piano Trio performing pieces by Mendelssohn, Vivaldi and Beethoven in addition to Christmas favourites.
Tickets are £17.50 and concert-goers will be treated to a truly memorable evening, enjoying the beautiful trees at night in the majestic setting of St Paul’s. Tickets can be purchased here and the price includes a glass of wine.
Entry to the Festival is £3 and free for children under 16. This year the money raised will go towards funding much-needed equipment for Bedford Hospital and supporting projects including the Primrose Car Service taking patients to and from Addenbrookes Hospital for radiotherapy, and travelling in comfort.
The magic of taking part
Pat Gibson, who helps decorate the Bedford N.H.S.Retirement Fellowship and Breathe Easy support group trees, said: “It almost feels like a reunion when the day arrives for dressing the tree. There’s a very friendly atmosphere, all ages involved and it’s good for networking – you might see a group decorating a tree whom you have never heard of – this has actually happened to me as very few people are aware of ‘Breathe Easy’ so I enlighten them.”
Pat freely admits she is addicted to Christmas trees and loves the creativity of being part of the festival.
“It just needs one person to come up with ideas and it just snowballs – pardon the pun,” she said.
“One of our members was taken with a tree that had knitted decorations displayed on it and this year, as soon as the theme was known, she was in planning mode and bringing family in to help her.
“The festival is now very much part of our programme and members look forward to being creative with knitting, crocheting stars with silver tinsel intertwined – and recycling brightly coloured sweet wrappings – the simplest decorations can look so effective on a Christmas tree.”
Pat says that by sponsoring a tree, they are part of a network which is increasing the awareness and importance of support groups.
Taking part for the first time this year is Food etc… a charity providing cookery workshops for disadvantaged families throughout Bedfordshire.
Director, Julie Clay, said: “2022 is the first year that Food etc is involved in the festival. We like the fact that it raises much-needed funds for two key places in Bedford – the hospital and the church.
“As a new organisation, we are hoping that it helps to raise community awareness of the cookery workshops we arrange and our volunteers are really looking forward to being involved in decorating our tree and participating in this lovely event.”
“If you’d like to have a guess at the musical theme that we have chosen, here are a couple of clues:
Clue 1: Are you saying you want some more?
Clue 2: Our tree may or may not include hot sausage and mustard or cold jelly and custard.”
Cllr Henry Vann, summed up the event saying: “The smell of trees in St Paul’s as part of the annual Christmas Tree Festival is the arrival of the Advent and Christmas seasons for me; and when you add to that the sounds of numerous local choirs and musicians performing (and having sung at it myself a number of times!) this is one annual town centre event which is absolutely not to be missed.”
