The Festival of Trees’ annual Donor Appreciation Party for tree donors included the announcement of the 2022 Conifer Awards in eleven categories ranging from Most Beautiful to Most Traditional to Best Use of Lighting to Best Children’s Theme and several more. Each category includes a First, Second and Third Place Winner. Each winner receives a hand-blown crystal tree by Simon Pearce.
“Each year we marvel at the creativity and beauty of our trees,” said Festival president Tom Lussier. “To us, they’re all award winners; however, we rely on the judgement of our independent judges to choose the very best in a number of distinct categories,” he added,
According to Lussier, each year the Festival recruits a team of independent judges. The judges are not affiliated with any organization entering a tree in the Festival. Their judging is conducted anonymously and without knowledge of the person, group, or organization presenting the trees. The 2022 judges each had over 40 years of decorative arts experience, they were: Susan Mangano of Paint at Heart Designs, LLC of Londonderry, NH; Dorothy Pullo, CDA, a certified decorative arts instructor from Londonderry, NH; and Michael Theriault of Michael’s Events and Flowers of Haverhill, MA.