Photo by Deb Gau Gin Windey and Terry Hennen admire the different Christmas trees at the Lyon County Museum’s Indoor Tree Walk on Thursday. One tree, representing Hill Street Place, had a topper shaped like a giant mug of hot chocolate.

MARSHALL — Each year, area community members work to bring as much holiday spirit as they can to the Lyon County Museum. The result is the forest of decorated trees at the Indoor Christmas Tree Walk.

It’s fun to see people’s reactions to the decorations, said museum director Jennifer Andries.

“Some people make it their tradition,” Andries said. It’s also been nice to hear from people visiting the Tree Walk for the first time, she said.

The 12th annual Indoor Christmas Tree Walk opened in November, and will run through Dec. 31. Visitors can vote for their favorite trees by making donations that benefit the Lyon County Historical Society.

This year, the Christmas Tree Walk is still at a high point for participation by area groups like clubs, schools, nonprofits and businesses. Andries said there are a total of 26 trees in the Tree Walk.

“It’s the same as last year, and that was the highest (number) it had ever been,” Andries said. “Hopefully we can get 26 next year, or even more.”

Decorated trees are placed around the main level of the museum — although there are also holiday decorations all through the museum, Andries said. Some of the decorations come from museum collections, or have themed displays. For example, this year a collection of felt Christmas decorations is brightening up the museum’s Heritage Room.

Many people like to come see the trees and take in the holiday atmosphere at the museum, Andries said.

“Just as you walk in, it’s very Christmassy,” she said.

On Thursday afternoon, some of the museum visitors included a group of women from the Golden Pond neighborhood in Marshall.

“We do something different once a month,” explained Terry Hennen, one of the visitors. After meeting at the museum’s soda fountain, the group checked out the different Christmas trees.

Preparing for the Christmas Tree Walk takes a lot of work, Andries said. Technically, setup started even before Halloween.

“We had our Halloween event on October 26th, and after that we started,” she said. “We brought out all the tree bags.”

Volunteers helped set up the Christmas trees, and then contest participants came in to decorate them.

Museum visitors can vote for their favorite Tree Walk displays in a couple of ways. They can leave monetary donations in the boxes at the bottom of each tree, or they can vote online at the museum’s website.

“We started it in 2020 during COVID, and then we just continued,” Andries said of the online voting. While most people like to visit the Indoor Tree Walk in person these days, it was good to have additional options for voters, she said.

Voting for the Indoor Christmas Tree Walk will be open through the Dec. 31. The Lyon County Museum also has extended hours during that time.

More details on museum hours and closed holidays can be found at https://lyoncomuseum.org.