Every year, here at The Reinge Clinic, we like to get involved in the Kenilworth Christmas Tree festival at St Nicholas Church. 🎄 For us it is a bit of fun, a great way to help local charities and an opportunity to get word out about our Physiotherapy Clinic, all at the same time. 🤩
We first heard about the Christmas Tree festival via The Kenilworth Chamber. At the time, Gina had just started on the committee and was asked whether she was free to come and help out setting up the Chamber’s Tree. “Why don’t you put your own tree in at the same time?”, the Chairman said to us, “And get some exposure for the clinic”. Now at the time, we were still living in Bristol, Covid was still in full swing and we were very much in our infancy with the Kenilworth Clinic. So it all sounded like a great idea, with only one small snag. It was 5pm at night and we had no tree, no decorations and needed to be in Kenilworth for 10am the next morning.
Luckily, Portishead, where we were living at the time, had a Homebase, so Ian was swiftly sent down the road to find an artificial tree and any decorations he could find, while Gina hit the computer trying to design anything bespoke we could add to the tree. By 8pm, we had a tree, decorations and a plan for the morning. That first year was very rushed and the tree was limited, but we made it, and Eddie our skeleton was left on the tree for the Christmas Period. It was super fun setting up the tree and the atmosphere was great. That year the tree was up at the top of Warwick Road in what is now Foscetto Lounge.
2021 – Kenilworth Christmas Tree Festival
The following year, we decided to get slightly more organised. We found some Sports Themed gingerbread men and made some bespoke decorations highlighting our services. We did have one problem though. We had been invited to speak at a National Therapy Expo for 2 days and this coincided with the installation of the Tree.
Luckily for us, and only for the cost of a Hot Chocolate! Gina’s Mum stepped in and offered to set the tree up! Fabulous and Thank you to Gina’s Mum. Eddie had enjoyed himself so much the previous year that he was not planning to miss it this year. So he dutifully sat on the tree for the duration. With Covid gone, the tree was in the church that year and then afterwards was moved into the then empty shop in Warwick Road, now Wetherspoons, for the Christmas period.
2022 – Tree festival – Jubilee Celebrations
As it was the Queens Platinum Jubilee, the theme for the 2022 year had been set. So we got Red, White and Blue tinsel and made up some jubilee decorations. Of course Eddie wanted to pay his respects to the Queen and so was again happy to sit in the Tree. One large hot chocolate later and Gina’s Mum again agreed to set up the tree whilst we spoke at the Therapy Expo in the NEC, and another year went by successfully.
2023 – Time to get Serious
In 2023 we felt we need some help to improve our Tree and the festival was raising money for Flourish this year. Flourish are a local Leamington Spa charity that help young girls to flourish.
So in October Gina sat down with her best friend Becky, to come up with some ideas to make our tree look fabulous. We wanted to bring some of the charity into the tree, so after some internet searching, we found that Flourish had certain key words in their website that really spoke about what they did. So with the assistance of Becky’s Dad’s laser cutter, we took these words to make some bespoke, glittery decorations to honour the charity.
That year cost us 2 Hot Chocolates! As Becky came along with Gina’s mum to set up the tree and it looked fabulous. 😍
2024 – The Skeletons appear. 🫣
For 2024 when Becky and Gina sat down in October to discus the plans for this year’s tree, Eddie the Skeleton was looking over their shoulder eager to get involved. The charity that year was Baby Basics, Warwick who are a local charity that supports vulnerable women and their newborn babies. We looked at their logo which was a pink chick and wondered whether to use that as the basis for the design, but in the end Eddie kept coming into view.
Every year for the Carnival, the skeletons get involved, (Take a look at that blog here) doing something on the float. With Eddie eyeing us up, we started to wonder whether the skeletons should get involved. Eddie immediately sprang into action and before we knew it he had all his miniature skeleton friends round!
So we decided they should have a Christmas Party on the tree! Very, very small bottles of beer and tankards were purchased and glued onto the skeletons hands. We also found tiny Christmas hats and they we also attached to the skeleton heads. The scene was set and our now very experienced tree setter uppers, installed it for us once again.
For a bit more fun, the skeletons helped us set up the test tree and we captured them on video!.
2025 -Skeleton Chaos on the Christmas Tree!
So what for this year? Well we won’t spoil the surprise by posting the test set up picture. But we can tell you that when Gina and Becky sat down this year, the idea popped into their heads instantly! This year the charity is The Parenting Project who support young children and their families in Warwickshire.
Our naughty skeleton family seemed again perfect and, well we had all the miniture skeletons so it would be a shame not to use them. Much like the carnival, which has become all about our larger skeletons getting up to all sorts of fun, the Christmas Tree festival is heading the same way. 😀
So if you get a chance head down to St Nicholas Church in Kenilworth from November 27-30th and watch the skeletons having a snowball fight! ⛄ Eddie will be attempting to keep them in check but he is unlikely to succeed.
As you can see we thoroughly enjoy getting involved in this great community event each year, and we really do put a lot of thought into our tree each year. We hope you enjoy seeing what the skeletons get up to as much as we enjoy putting it together and thank you again to our fabulous set up team. 😍