Oh Christmas Tree

Several times, I've blogged about Owego, the "Coolest Small Town in America".  Owego is about 20 miles west of Binghamton, New York (where I work) and is noted for a number of things - historical homes, a lovely town square, some pretty cool gift shops, and just plain friendly people.

At the Tioga County Historical Society, there is a yearly display and auction of Christmas trees in an event called O Tannenbaum.  This is a silent auction of donated decorations (with or without the trees they are on), wreaths and more, benefiting the Tioga County, New York Historical Society.  

This year the auction closes on Saturday, December 17.

The theme is Christmas at the Circus, and I may blog about that at a different time.  For now, let's enter this historic building.

First, some holiday joy for you, my readers.

Here are some of the trees and wreaths available.

Remember white trees?  There's even a story behind green Santa hats (see the top of the tree on the left) as Santa has not always been dressed as we think of him now.

How about a white tree decorated in pisanki (Polish Easter eggs)?

And one of the many wreaths.

Walking past the trees, it was hard to imagine what O Tannenbaum was like five years ago.

The historical society, like much of Owego (which lies along the Susquehanna River), flooded.

Many people volunteered in the flood recovery and their hard work made it possible to have the auction that year.  As far as salvaging the museum contents, a lot of hard decisions had to be made and, quite honestly, a lot of items were lost.

But thanks to the 2011 auction, flood recovery continued.  Now, the people of Tennessee start their recovery from an epic fire, and start their journey to recovery. 

This holiday season will be a hard time for many of us in the United States, for many reasons.  But I hope this post will give you a few minutes of joy.