Art of decorating on display at Vancouver Rotary Festival of Trees

Community lighting ceremony at the 19th annual Vancouver Rotary Festival of Trees

What: Christmas tree lighting, concerts, a visit from Santa and mini farmers market.

Where: Esther Short Park, 301 W. Eighth St.; Hilton Vancouver Washington, 301 W. Sixth St.

When: Friday, 3 to 6 p.m., community tree lighting ceremony in Esther Short Park; 3 to 8 p.m., concerts at the Hilton by the Vancouver Community Band Concert and Vancouver Pops Orchestra.

Cost: Free.

Information: rotaryfestivaloftrees.org

Festival of Trees viewing and raffles

What: Tree displays, The Talking Tree, Vancouver Farmers Holiday Market, raffle and entertainment.

Where: Hilton Vancouver Washington, 301 W. Sixth St.

When: Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. viewing and tree lighting ceremony; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4 p.m. viewing, 4 p.m. Sunday tree raffle drawing.

Cost: Free admission with suggested donation of $5 per family, $5 for tree raffle tickets.

Information: rotaryfestivaloftrees.org

Robin Anderson admits that, despite her longtime career as a professional decorator, she still occasionally suffers from “tree envy.”

The head designer for the Vancouver Rotary Festival of Trees loves seeing the work that goes into all 12 carefully decorated trees raffled off for the festival each year. But when the designers hold their three-day decorating party in late October, her ego sometimes takes a hit, she said with a laugh.

“All the designers are here together working, talking, visiting,” she said, walking through the temporary display of finished trees at Devine Consign earlier this month. “Sometimes you finish your tree and you think ‘this is the best ever’ — and then you look around and realize what others have done.”

One designer this year dubbed the phenomenon “tree envy,” Anderson said with a playful smile.

Nobody actually has sour grapes about it, though.

Nor does one of Anderson’s trees, dubbed “Christmas in the Vineyard,” which is decorated with a wine-stomping Santa, green and purple glass grapes (which probably don’t taste sour, but she wouldn’t advise eating them) and other similarly themed ornaments.

“I wanted to do something that wasn’t quite so Christmassy (red and white), so I looked at wine, the colors of wines, things like that,” Anderson said.

Other trees in this year’s lineup include the “Alaskan Glacier Ice” tree with stuffed polar bears and a metallic blue wrap representing the glacier; the “Over the Hills and Through the Woods” tree, with a giant stuffed skiing moose ornament; and “Sounds of the Season,” adorned with large drums, a violin and horns.

Then there’s Devine Consign owner Linda Glover’s favorite, “Heart FELT Christmas,” with an array of green felt elves and creatures.

“It’s nice having the trees here,” said Glover, whose store hosts the trees until they move to the Hilton for the weekend festival. “I think we get a lot of people in who bring their families to see them. It’s a great cause, and it brings in a lot of foot traffic.”

Each year, the sale of the array of professionally designed and decorated Christmas trees helps Rotary fund scholarships and community projects.

“Our goal is to sell 25,000 raffle tickets this year,” said Katlin Smith, the festival spokeswoman.

The tickets sell for $5 each and can be put in bins next to whichever tree package a person is interested in. The trees will be on display at the Hilton Vancouver Washington through the weekend, with raffle drawings at 4 p.m. Sunday.

The group used to auction the trees but decided a raffle was better because it opened up the possibility of owning one of the trees to a wider range of people.

Each tree also comes with an array of gifts and $100 cash — and in some cases the gift packages are worth quite a bit of money.

The “Priceless Memories” tree, for instance, comes with 30 pairs of earrings and coordinating necklaces made with precious and semi-precious stones, sterling silver, gold and pearls.

Some people enter the tree raffles just for the gifts, which are donated by local businesses and collected by Rotary.

“Some people will keep the gifts and give their trees to nonprofits for auction,” Smith said.

The festival used to feature live trees, but since they’re on display for two months, in recent years designers have moved to artificial trees. This year’s trees were donated by Nicholas Holiday Inc., Smith said.

“Really the artificial trees, they’re keepsakes,” Smith said. “They can last for a lifetime. You can just wrap them up and keep them in the attic until next year.”