The snow has started falling and that's got us thinking about some holiday fun! 

Every year, the Family Place holds a HUGE holiday fundraiser, the Festival of Trees. 

"Festival of Trees is arriving quickly and it's going to look just a little bit different this year," said Executive Director of the Family Place Dawn Gutzke.  "We're still very excited about it, however, it's going to be an online event this year. I think everyone will be kind of used to that kind of stuff happening now, I mean, it seems to be the way everything else is."

The annual event usually features two auctions, a silent auction and a tree auction. Both will be moved to an online format.

"Our silent auction items are going to go online on November 16th. They'll be open for bidding for two full weeks, November 16th to the 27th," said Dawn. "We're just asking anyone wishing to donate any silent auction items, you can bring them on down to the Family Place, we're open Monday to Friday from 8:30 to 3:30. If that's not an option for you, please call us, we'd be happy to come out and come pick them up. Call us at 842-7477."

The real question, though, is how do you take a room full of trees that get auctioned off and turn it into a virtual event?

"The Christmas Tree Auction is going to look quite a bit different," Dawn noted.  "We don't have a venue this year that it allowing us to host the Festival of Trees like we normally do. So we're asking anyone wishing to create or donate a tree that you'll set your tree up, at home or in your business, fully decorated as you normally would, and give us a shout and we will come down and take some videos and photo's with you and get them up on our Facebook page to display on there and everyone can have a virtual tour of all the trees this year."

"On November 26, that is the day that we would normally hold the live auction and gala event, we are gonna open up the bidding on Facebook for all the trees. So beginning November 26th at 9 am all the Christmas trees will be open for bidding for one day only. It will close at 9 pm that night."

All the Festival of Trees festivities, including a contest to WIN a tree, can be found on their Facebook group.