My Tree, My Community - The Eden Project

Photos of our tree decorating at The Eden Project. Our tree was inspired by talking to the elderly residents of Indian Queens at a tea party at the school. We were fascinated by the discovery that the majority of the guests at our tea party, instead of a traditional Christmas tree when they were younger, collected branches of holly to decorate. We wanted to recreate this idea by creating our own sparkling branches. We were also inspired by how, when asked to design their dream tree, many of the class created a tree that was dressed up as something else or looked alive. This led to the idea of dressing our tree up as a holly tree. We also wanted to incorporate Christmas memories and stories, both of the class and of our guests at the tea party as we learned so many interesting things. Therefore inside our holly tree "clothes" there are fragments of stories, ideas and descriptions to act as a written memory museum of Christmas past and present - each leaf is a little book in which to share our discoveries. There is also a secret surprise if you look closely, really bringing our tree to life! Friendly Christmas tree monster anyone?

Thanks to everyone at The Eden Project, the super creative children and the lovely Miss Fugler at Indian Queens school.