SIERRA VISTA — The corridors of the Mall at Sierra Vista were a veritable Christmas forest Saturday as the Annual Festival of Trees kicked off its ninth year.

The Sierra Vista Regional Health Center Foundation hosts the event each year, with all revenue from the sale of the 35 trees entered into the event.

Other items, such as gingerbread houses, wreaths and centerpieces, also will be sold in an effort to raise money for new cardiac monitors for the emergency department of the Sierra Vista Regional Health Center, said Foundation Manager Eva Dickerson.

Beginning Wednesday, the trees will be judged on the various categories in the event, including traditional, imaginative and patriotic. At that point, each tree will be marked with a price that anyone can pay to purchase the tree right then, Dickerson said.

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Trees that are not purchased by Dec. 1 are put up for bidding. Bids can be made at the table attended by festival officials near the trees from 3 to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, or 3 to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

One of the trees entered into the imaginative category is the hospital’s Health Information Department’s gingerbread man tree, which staff members have titled, “Catch Me If You Can … I’m the Gingerbread Man.”

Terry Penny, one of the five-member team that was responsible for the tree, said she got the idea from a picture from a magazine she’s had for two years.

The 6-foot-tall tree sticks out of a wooden base in the shape of a gingerbread house, covered in graham crackers and assorted candy. The limbs of the tree are topped with salt-dough gingerbread men.

“I don’t like doing ordinary,” Penny said. “Anything out of the ordinary.”

One of Penny’s individual entries in the wreath category is another example of her preference for the unordinary.

Her pretzel wreath consists of two layers of 11 unsalted pretzels glued together and adorned with a bow and decorative candy canes and gingerbread men.

Another tree entered into the nature category was created by the hospital’s medical surgical unit staff and is called “Christmas Eggstravaganza.”

Decorated with a total of 48 intricately cut and designed goose eggs, the tree was the brainchild of Peggie Johnson, a registered nurse of the medical surgical unit.

Johnson has been egging, as the hobby is called, for more than 10 years. She gave a crash course in the craft to the half dozen staff members that helped decorate the eggs that now adorn the tree.

“I was teaching them as we went along,” she said. “They’d tell me what they wanted to do and I’d help them out. It was on the fly, just like nursing.”

Many of the eggs had large openings into which an intricate scene was inserted, such as a fawn sitting in a field of grass. Some shells had movable doors that one could open and shut.

The angel on top of the tree was composed of duck, goose and emu eggs, she said.

Beyond the trees, there also will be raffles for $5,000 worth of donated items held on Dec. 4 at 6 p.m. at the mall, during the culminating celebration of the event. Tickets are $5 each, and prizes include a $250 gift card for Ace Hardware, a child’s BMX hotrod bicycle from Sun ’N’ Spokes and a one night stay at Ramsey Canyon Cabins.

Food from the hospital’s nutrition center will be served to guests, and the Cochise College Singers will be on hand to sing carols, Dickerson said.

In another effort to raise money, the foundation will have a gift wrapping booth at the mall beginning Friday. Shoppers can pay to have presents wrapped from noon to 8 p.m. Friday through Saturday, and 4 to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Herald/Review reporter Derek Jordan can be reached at 515-4680 or by e-mail at derek.jordan@svherald.com.

WHERE TO CALL

For information about the Festival of Trees, contact the Sierra Vista Regional Health Center Foundation at 417-4990.