This holiday season, we encourage you to take some time to get creative and help decorate the Mirth Tree!

In an effort to reduce waste, the City of Goshen’s Department of Environment Resilience (GDER) wants to encourage you to see what you can create with only the things you can find or recycle. We invite residents to decorate Goshen’s Mirth Tree with these ornaments.

The tree, located outside the Goshen Utilities Business Office, 203 S. Fifth St., is lit up and ready for your ornaments, which you can create out of natural or recycled materials you find in or around your house.

This year you can make your own ornaments at City Hall! It’s across the street at 202 S. Fifth St. Come between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Friday, December 16. We’ll provide the crafting supplies and workstation for you to use.

Hang your ornaments on the lit tree anytime between now and December 23. The ornaments you put on the tree will then be up for grabs! Starting on December 24, you will be able to come back and take home an ornament that you like. You don’t need to share an ornament to take one, and vice versa; we want to encourage the act of giving without expectation!

As you are making your ornament, please keep these things in mind:

• Please refrain from using glass; we want to keep everyone safe and avoid broken glass.
• Paper and cardboard are great materials to use, but because the tree is outside, the weather may ruin such ornaments.
• Please do not use glitter; while glitter is appealing to the eye, the negative effects it has on the environment outweigh the visual appeal.  Some materials you may use are: Buttons, ribbons, popsicle sticks, wooden beads, sticks, acorns, pine cones and other natural materials.

While this is not a contest, we encourage you to take photos of your ornament or of yourself placing your ornament on the tree and submit them for the City to share on social media. Photos can be submitted via Facebook Messenger to the City of Goshen, Indiana, or via email to communications@goshencity.com. You also may tag the City on your Facebook post.

To learn more about the City’s efforts in reducing waste, call the Goshen Department of Environmental Resilience at 574.534.0076 or go to their website at goshenindiana.org/environmental-resilience.