Advent 2010, The Enchanted Forest

A little too Dr. Sues?  That's what we were afraid of when we put it up, but we never had a bad comment from a congregation member about it.  In fact, one family asked if they could go up and take their family Christmas photo in front of it.  We intentionally went as far away as possible from the 17 fake Christmas trees we had the year before.  This was a much easier setup.  Each tree is made of foam core and the color and patterns were printed on at local printing/design shop Zeeland Record.  It turned out to be the best, most light-weight material for the job.  Little plywood triangles were glued to the back bottom of each tree for standing up, and they were sitting on boxes and things for varying height.  Then we wove some white fabric and lights around the bases of them.  The backdrop is wood frame construction painted solid white (we've used these walls many times before).

The only downside I'll mention is that a complicated stage design usually means less room for the band, and this was the most cramped we've ever been.  Some people had to climb over set pieces just to get to their 1 square foot of standing space.  We went to a very blank stage after this :)