BROWNSTOWN — In her three years of participating in the Jackson County History Center’s Festival of Trees, Janet Kiewit is three-for-three in receiving awards.

In 2021, the Brownstown woman won the people’s choice award with her silver tree decorated with polar bear ornaments. The theme was “My Favorite Animal.”

In 2022, she placed third with her deconstructed snowman tree that consisted of ornaments that were parts of a snowman. The theme was “Snowmen.”

In 2023, she was back at the top, winning the people’s choice award with her tree that rotated in a circle and was decorated with a few elves and a lot of other ornaments. The theme was “Gnomes and Elves.”

“I just love Christmas,” she said, smiling, when asked about her secret to success.

She said the fact that her tree moved around and was heavily decorated helped it receive the most votes from the nearly 1,000 people who stopped by the history center’s livery barn from Dec. 1 to 24 to view the Festival of Trees.

“This is mostly what I had in my bedroom last year, so I didn’t have to do a whole lot to put it together,” she said of the tree. “I don’t do gnomes, so these (three ornaments) were my elves. I already had them. This was an easy year for me because in the years past, I have made things, but this year, I really didn’t.”

Kiewit said she spray painted a tree she already had to give it a silver hue.

“I really wanted a flocked tree, but I have so many trees, my husband really didn’t want me to have (more) trees,” she said, smiling. “I took spray paint to it. It kind of has an icy look to it, I think, so I like it.”

It didn’t take her very long to put on all of the ornaments.

“Once you get going, it goes fast,” she said. “I’m kind of just a poke it here, poke it there. I have friends who have to step back at every ornament and look it, but I’m not that kind of person. … I kind of just spread it out here and there.”

For the tree topper, she cut off the bottom of a large ornament and placed it on top.

“I think that’s the neat thing is kind of look at things different,” Kiewit said. “There’s always just an ornament is an ornament. I like to use it in different ways. That’s what I did. I just took one of those old ornaments and whacked the top of it off.”

For her award, Kiewit received another glass ornament from the history center.

“I do want to thank people for coming,” she said. “I want them to realize when they come, it gets people in the door and it’s numbers, and (history center volunteer Margo Brewer) gets to use those when she’s writing grants. I do want people to know when they come, it’s just not ‘I want to go look at the trees.’ It does snowball into equating to helping the history center and what they do here.”

Other awards went to Susie Meier and Kitty Lewis, who placed second, and Marisa Soto, who placed third.

After entering trees on her own the past couple of years, Meier got Lewis on board this year to enter a tree on behalf of Fort Vallonia Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution. Both Seymour women are members of that organization.

Their entry was a Christmas tree decorated to look like a gnome sitting on a tree stump. The gnome wore a Revolutionary War jacket and a tri-cone hat and had a piece of paper with “Freedom, the gift that keeps on giving” on it.

“I thought we ought to have something to do with freedom and patriots, so I wanted a patriot tree,” Meier said. “Kitty had (the jacket and hat) from years ago from plays or whatever her kids had been in.”

Meier worked on the tree stump, which opened on the front for people to see an elf sitting on a small stool with a lamp shining on it.

Next to the display were pieces of paper on a small table for people to write their answer to “What’s your gift?” and place in Santa’s mailbox.

Meier said she heard people say they really liked the tree and the interactive element of the display.

“I’m really surprised,” she said of winning an award for the first time. “I’ve done a couple trees of my own, but this is the first year the DAR has done it. I’ll have to do it again. It was fun.”

Soto, who lives in Brownstown and owns Azteca Mexican Restaurant, said she visited the Festival of Trees a couple of years ago, and her daughter encouraged her to participate. She set up a tree for the first time in 2022 and decided to do it again in 2023.

Her tree was filled with a lot of gnome ornaments, including some she made, and some elf ornaments. There were so many on the tree, she had no idea of the total number.

She figures her tree received a lot of votes because of the number of ornaments based on the theme.

This was the fifth year for the Festival of Trees. Brewer said there were 16 trees on display for people to cast a vote for their favorite and 40 overall to view. Plus, there were display cases in the middle of the livery barn with various Christmas decor.

“I got lots of compliments on all of your trees,” Brewer told the award winners. “They were really impressed.”

For 2024, the theme will be “Santa Claus.”

“Hopefully, we can count on you guys to do a Santa Claus tree,” Brewer said to the 2023 winners.