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Every year the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, pulls together a wonderful Christmas event for families and children called “Share the Wonder”.

The Wyeth Center is the venue for this magical display.  Complete with a train set that runs around an entire replica of a New England village entirely decked out for the Holiday Season.  There are ornaments hanging from the ceiling, life size Nutcrackers flanking the entry way and many Christmas trees decorated by area designers.  This year only two of us participated - Chatfield Design and Margo Moore.

Megan at Margo Moore designed the big tree that shines brightly from the second floor for all to see at night - truly beautiful.  My tree, well, two trees to be exact, are much smaller in scale.   My favorite of the two trees is the “wishing tree”.  Kids and adults get to write down their own wish for the year ahead and post them on the tree.  If you are lucky enough to get to the Wyeth Center early, there are clear plastic ornaments you can put your written wish inside to hang on the the tree which is super fun!  But, all other written wishes are just as important and hang beautifully by their raffia strings.

I first had this wish tree thought/idea while at the New York Gift Fair in 2009.  There was a booth that had a fabulous laser cut, recycled, cardboard shaped Christmas tree where by you wrote down your wish on a colored piece of paper and scrolled it up into the the laser cut hole of the tree. 

I loved it!  I immediately knew that this would be such a great thing for Share the Wonder event.  Little did I know then that this cardboard company also GAVE the White House the same tree as one of the many trees for the public spaces on view.  As I googled it, of course the images came up just like I had envisioned for the Farnsworth.  What I had not envisioned was the cost of a laser cut cardboard tree.  Five thousand dollars.  The White House got theirs for free, the Farnsworth - not so lucky.

When thrown lemons you really can make lemonade.  We at the museum threw up a fake tree (museum regulations) proceeded to buy clear plastic ornaments that come apart to insert whatever wish you want, along with cutting long strips of colored paper with string ties and we were in business.  Not to mention it was pretty much green as far as the recycling goes.  The clear plastic ornaments will be reused every year, the colored paper for extra wishes is a recycled paper and the ties are recycled raffia.

I am so excited about this event and how the adults of whom experienced Share the Wonder as a child now bring their own children to view the same experience.  It’s all about tradition.

The wishes that were read were awesome and selfless.  I would like to make the point that we are all about community here, “make a wish, make a donation, and Share the Wonder.  Positive reinforcement by wish and donation by Sharing the Wonder will ensure that this magical event will continue for future generations.

This year’s Share the Wonder celebration is underwritten by a grant from the Wyeth Foundation.
Share the Wonder is sponsored by Camden National Bank.