Twinkling lights, colorfully decorated Christmas trees and the soft sounds of festive music greeted visitors to Jefferson Elementary’s 5th Annual Festival of Trees this past weekend.

The Friday and Sunday event, held at Hopkins Park Community Center, featured sponsored trees and wreaths from various local businesses and community members. From Gordon Hardware’s wreath ornamented with tools to the Blue Moon Balloon Co.’s tree constructed solely out of balloons and topped with a Hershey’s Kiss-shaped balloon, each sponsored item was uniquely adorned. Festival attendees were able to delight in the sights, as well as enjoy products on sale from the many craft vendors also in attendance.

“I think it gets more and more popular as the years go on,” said festival co-chair Allison Hess. “It’s a quality show and offers a nice little mix of things for people. It’s not just your regular run of the mill event.”

Sponsors had the option to decorate their own tree or wreath or have it decorated for them. Costs varied with each option.

“You can decide after either choice whether you want to donate the tree back to the school for the raffle or if you just want to have the tree,” Hess said. “Most donate it back.”

All proceeds went to Jefferson Elementary. Trees and wreaths donated back to the school were raffled off on Saturday. Visitors purchased raffle tickets and placed them in the gift box under the tree or wreath of their choice.

“If you win you get the tree with all the ornaments on it,” Hess said.

Kathie Miller, owner of Freeport-based Bonny’s Brittles, 223 W. Avon Street, specializes in very thin homemade peanut brittle and a frozen dessert called a pumpkin log. Pecan brittle and cashew brittle, referred to as “fancy brittles,” were also available at her booth.

“It’s wonderful for local people especially to be able to come in and showcase their home products,” Miller said. “These products are not made in China. My favorite thing here is a special brittle I make called Chop Suey. It has peanuts and coconut in it, so it’s a love-hate thing for some people with coconut, but it’s a very gourmet peanut brittle.”

Rachel Scott, a 10-year-old student at Jefferson Elementary School, said she enjoyed the festival.

“It’s pretty,” she said. “And it’s entertaining. There are a lot of things to do. It’s fun to do the raffle because you can win something.”

In addition to the trees and wreaths, other festival highlights included pictures with Santa, face painting, pets for adoption from TAILS and a concession stand selling various snack items. Other elementary schools were also able to get involved in the festivities.

“We’ve asked every elementary school to decorate a snowman,” Hess said. “We provide them with a white, four-foot wooden snowman, already painted, and they just decorate them. Then we bring the snowmen back in, and kids from that school get a free raffle ticket to win their school snowman.”

Hess said she thinks next year’s event will be even bigger and better.

“We always want to add a little something different,” Hess said. “Last year I added the snowmen because I thought it was fun and because it involved all the schools.”