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Tread of Pioneers Museum executive director Candice Lombardo calls it "the festival." It's a cornerstone of the museum's year -- its signature event and largest fund-raiser. For 10 years, the Festival of Trees has been a signal of the beginning of the holiday season and a way to bring people into the museum for what is sometimes their first visit.

By the time the museum won permanent funding in the form of a 0.3-mill property tax passed in 2003, the festival had become a community tradition, and there was never any discussion of ending it.

The Festival of Trees raises about $9,000 annually for the museum. In the past, the money paid utilities and salaries.

The festival continues, but is no longer a fund-raiser necessary to pay for operating costs. Instead, the money raised is used for extra projects such as collection inventory and preservation.

Each year, nonprofits, schools and businesses decorate Christmas trees for the event. The museum reimburses them as much as $100 for their expenses. Vectra Bank donates the prelit trees to the museum.

This year, there are 24 trees and 23 sponsors, including the Lowell Whiteman School, Safeway floral department, Routt County CattleWomen and Colorado Mountain College.

Each group chooses a theme -- an aesthetic or idea -- and typically spends hours putting the tree together for the sponsor party Thursday night.

This year, Horizons made a Picasso tree. They took a print of Picasso's "Three Musicians" and used it for the top of the tree. Then, Horizons clients took copies of the same Picasso print, which had been stripped of color, and decorated it in their own way.

"Some scribbled on it and some outlined it," said Horizons' volunteer coordinator Chrissie Hodges. Those individual prints were pasted to black backings and turned into ornaments. The rest of the tree decorations follow the "Three Musicians" musical theme.

On Thursday night, decorators and sponsors gathered in a room with their trees. Each name was put in a hat and as that name was drawn, the chosen sponsor picked which tree they would like to take home (usually for display in a business's lobby).

This is the time when decorators hold their breath, hoping their tree is chosen first. The Tread volunteers always include one extra tree so the last person to have their name drawn can choose between two trees.

For the next week, the trees are available for viewing at the museum. Trees can be seen from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily through Tuesday. The museum will open at 10:30 a.m. Sunday for people who want to stop by after church services end. The museum will close at 4 p.m. Tuesday so the trees can be prepared for delivery. The Conroy Moving and Storage company donates its entire day Wednesday to deliver the trees.

Viewing the trees is free to Routt County residents.

"Before the mill levy passed, it was not free, but this is our way of thanking residents for passing (the museum tax)," Lombardo said.

Cider, cookies and candy canes will be available all week for visitors. Last year, 250 people visited the museum for the Festival of Trees.