Jackson County History Center volunteers Margo Brewer, far right, and Bill Day, second from right, present the 2020 Festival of Trees people’s choice award to Becky Urbain of Freetown on Jan. 14. Urbain’s husband, Lester, and sister, Claudette Cork, also helped with the tree. ZACH SPICER | THE TRIBUNE

BROWNSTOWN

While claiming her prize for winning the people’s choice award for the inaugural Jackson County History Center Festival of Trees, Becky Urbain found out the theme for the next year.

It was “My Favorite Color.” The Freetown woman said she normally decorates her Christmas trees at home in blue, so that was an easy choice.

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She added gold because she said she likes the combination of the colors.

After the nearly 500 votes recently were counted, history center officials called Urbain to let her know she repeated as the people’s choice award winner. Again, she received a glass ornament as a prize.

“I was surprised because there are some beautiful trees here this year,” she said. “There were some, too, last year, but I thought there was really some nice trees here this year.”

Her husband, Lester, said he wasn’t surprised hers was selected. Again, she had help from her sister, Claudette Cork of Bedford, in decorating the tree.

“I really thought they had the best looking tree,” Lester said.

Starting in the fall of 2019, people could take an artificial or real tree to the livery barn at the history center, 105 N. Sugar St., Brownstown, to decorate with ornaments and lights based on the theme.

During events in December and arranged tours, the public could view the display and cast their vote for the people’s choice award.

Eight trees were decorated by local individuals or groups, and others were set up for people to look at while visiting the livery barn during the holiday season.

For the tree, Becky said she wanted to include the bubble lights again. There were 28 of those incorporated with the crisscross pattern of blue ribbon. There also were gold ornaments and more than 2,000 blue lights.

“That took the longest, and that was done at home,” she said of putting on the strings of blue lights. “It really didn’t take near as long to put this together as it did last year.”

Various sizes of boxes wrapped in blue or gold wrapping paper were placed under the tree.

Then a dollhouse and a Radio Flyer wagon sat to the left of the tree and were part of the staging from the movie “A Christmas Story.” A 50th anniversary Red Ryder BB gun box was placed in the wagon along with some other items, including a gift bag with a deranged Easter bunny suit from the movie that Cork bought.

“We both just like ‘A Christmas Story,’ and my husband had the Red Ryder BB gun and the wagon. Then I’ve had the dollhouse since I was in my 20s. It was a Christmas present from my parents,” Becky said.

The dollhouse had wreaths with a blue ribbon above each window and a Christmas tree in each window. One window also had a leg lamp that’s featured in the movie.

“You can actually get the full-sized leg lamps. (Cork) really wanted to do that, and I said no, so we settled on that to incorporate that as part of the story,” Becky said.

The porch of the dollhouse also had gold garland wrapped around the posts and a couple more Christmas trees and two chairs.

“We had to decorate it for Christmas if it was part of the tree,” Cork said of the dollhouse.

Once the display was completed, Becky and her sister were happy with how it looked.

“I loved the way it looks, and I will definitely do the crisscross pattern again for me,” Becky said. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done it, but I love the way it works out. It looks better without the lights on because the blue, I would change my ribbon to where it’s a solid color so it shows up better. But with the lights on, it doesn’t show up as well because the lights reflect through it.”

History center volunteers also thought the tree and the seven others looked great.

“We were tickled to death,” Margo Brewer said, noting several school groups viewed the display. “It’s a lot of work on us, but it’s so worth it. We’ve gotten a lot of exposure. We’re thrilled to death and want to do it again next (winter).”

The theme for the third annual Festival of Trees will be “My Favorite Animal.”

So will Becky go for the people’s choice award three-peat?

“I really don’t know,” she said, smiling. “The last two years, it has been easy because my favorite color is blue, and my ornaments and stuff I’ve had, and I’ve not had to purchase a lot to do this.”

People will have to enter their own tree or visit the display to find out.