Oxford County Maine Oxford Hills Trees Festival
In the last weekend of November, as the Oxford Hills towns of western Maine turn toward the Christmas season, the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce fills a hall with fully decorated donated artificial trees. The event on the printed record is the Festival of Trees, presented by the chamber as its own annual gathering. Visitors walk among trees dressed by local donors and buy raffle tickets for a chance to carry one home. The chamber’s Christmas Parade runs beside it over the same Thanksgiving weekend.
Two dated editions carry particulars: a 2025 edition at the Norway Armory in Norway, billed the fourteenth annual Festival of Trees, and an earlier edition at Twin Town Plaza in South Paris, with a Christmas Parade on 25 November themed The 12 Days of Christmas. The venue moved between those two editions. The sheet title, Oxford Hills Trees Festival, is a reordering that no layer prints; the published name is Festival of Trees, and this article uses the published name throughout, keeping the sheet title verbatim on this first line and in the outlook heading below.
About
The Festival of Trees is the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce’s annual Festival of Trees, a Thanksgiving-weekend gathering built around donated artificial trees that local people and businesses decorate in full. Each tree arrives dressed from top to base, and visitors walk the rows, compare themes, and choose which trees to enter for in the raffle. The raffle is the centre of the event: tickets give visitors a chance to win a tree on display, and winners carry their trees home when the weekend closes.
Norway hosted the 2025 edition at the Norway Armory, while the earlier documented edition stood at Twin Town Plaza in South Paris. Neither Norway nor South Paris is the Oxford County seat; Paris holds that place, and South Paris is a village within the town of Paris. The chamber organises the festival in both towns, and a 2025 newsletter layer names Oxford Casino Hotel as sponsor of the 2025 edition. The Christmas Parade beside the tree display is the chamber’s annual parade; in the earlier edition its theme was The 12 Days of Christmas, and the parade fell on 25 November.
The event is modest in scale: a hall of decorated trees, a raffle, and a parade, set at the start of the Christmas season. The record gives it a moderate-thin profile: two dated editions with particulars, a documented venue move, and a clear organiser, but little beyond that.
For a useful comparison, see the Oxford County Maine Maine Brew Festival for another county festival.
Quick Facts
| Fact | Detail |
| Published name | Festival of Trees |
| Organiser | Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce |
| 2025 host town | Norway, Maine |
| 2025 venue | Norway Armory |
| Earlier host town | South Paris, Maine |
| Earlier venue | Twin Town Plaza |
| 2025 edition | 28–30 November 2025, fourteenth annual |
| Earlier edition | 24–26 November, Christmas Parade 25 November |
| Programme | Decorated donated artificial trees, raffle, Christmas Parade |
| County seat | Paris, Oxford County |
History
The chamber’s newsletter layer bills the 2025 edition as the fourteenth annual Festival of Trees, the only annual numbering the record carries. No founding year is computed from the billing, and no layer read states one. The earlier edition is recorded in a document-mirror layer with its dates and hours but without a year attached in the text as read, so this article gives its dates as 24–26 November and leaves the year unstated.
What the record does show is a festival that kept its shape while changing its address. The earlier edition stood at Twin Town Plaza in South Paris, open Friday five to eight in the evening, Saturday nine to five, and Sunday eleven to four, with the Christmas Parade that Saturday under the theme The 12 Days of Christmas. By 2025 the event had moved to the Norway Armory in Norway, running 28–30 November as the fourteenth annual Festival of Trees, with Oxford Casino Hotel named as sponsor. The move is documented in the layers, not assumed, and the chamber remains the organiser in both places.
The trees themselves are the constant: in both editions the display is made of fully decorated donated artificial trees, and the raffle gives visitors a chance to win one. The history here is the documented one: a chamber event, fourteen editions deep by 2025, that moved from South Paris to Norway and kept its trees, raffle, and parade intact.
What to Expect
A visitor to the Festival of Trees should picture a hall rather than a fairground. The trees stand in rows, each one fully decorated by its donor, and the pleasure of the event is in walking slowly among them: a tree in handmade ornaments beside a tree in a single colour scheme, a tree built around a hobby beside a tree hung with lights. Donors range across the Oxford Hills community, and the trees show it.
The raffle is the event’s engine: tickets are sold for a chance to win a tree, and visitors put their tickets toward the trees they like best. The draw closes the weekend, and winners carry their trees home. The chamber’s Christmas Parade runs over the same weekend, so a visitor can watch the parade and then walk the tree hall, or walk the hall first and catch the parade after. In the earlier edition the parade fell on 25 November under the theme The 12 Days of Christmas.
Hours in the earlier edition ran Friday five to eight in the evening, Saturday nine to five, and Sunday eleven to four. The 2025 edition ran 28–30 November at the Norway Armory. Admission in the earlier edition carried no fee to view the trees; the 2025 layer states no admission figure, so no free-viewing claim is extended to 2025. Visitors should expect a quiet, family-paced gathering, warm indoors, with the trees as the whole show and the parade as its outdoor companion.
Planning Your Visit
Check the chamber’s current announcement before travelling, because the venue has moved once already. The 2025 edition stood at the Norway Armory in Norway, while the earlier edition stood at Twin Town Plaza in South Paris, and a visitor who assumes one town will find the other. Confirm the town, the hall, the dates, and the hours for the coming edition, since the earlier edition’s hours ran Friday evening through Sunday afternoon and later editions may keep a similar shape without matching it exactly.
Plan the weekend around the pairing at the heart of the event: a Friday evening arrival suits the hall’s opening hours, a Saturday suits the parade and a long walk among the trees, and a Sunday suits a final look and the raffle draw. Bring a way to pay for raffle tickets, and allow time to study the trees before choosing where to place them.
Norway and South Paris sit close together in the Oxford Hills, and Paris, the county seat, is nearby. Late November in western Maine is cold, so dress for the walk between the indoor hall and the parade route. The earlier edition charged no fee to view the trees; the 2025 layer states no admission figure, so visitors should not assume the coming edition will match either reading without checking.
A Sample Itinerary
Arrive on Friday evening, when the hall opens, and take a first slow pass through the trees before the weekend crowds gather. Note the donors and the themes, and buy raffle tickets for the trees you would most like to take home. A Friday visit is the quietest way to see the display, and it leaves Saturday free for the parade.
Spend Saturday morning back in the hall for a second look, since a tree that seemed plain on Friday may reward a closer look on Saturday. Then step outside for the chamber’s Christmas Parade, which gives the festival its outdoor half. After the parade, return to the hall and place any remaining raffle tickets.
Use Sunday for a final walk and the close of the weekend. The earlier edition’s Sunday hours ran eleven to four, and the raffle draw brings the event to its end. If you win a tree, plan how to carry it: an artificial tree in full decoration is bulky, and a car with space for it is worth arranging in advance.
How It Compares
The Festival of Trees shares its name with events across the country, and the record keeps them apart. Festival of Trees gatherings in Rochester, Minnesota, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Oxford, Connecticut, and Oxford, England, are different events with their own organisers and venues. The Creative Lights Forest Festival in Oxford, England, is a different event again, and the Norway Maine Arts Festival in Norway, Maine, is a different event in the same town as the 2025 edition. A visitor searching by name alone will meet several of these, and the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce is the mark that separates this one from the rest.
Within Maine, the festival’s shape is its own: not a harvest festival, a music festival, or a fair, but a hall of decorated trees with a raffle and a parade, held at Thanksgiving weekend. The Norway Maine Arts Festival, held in the same town, is a summer arts gathering with nothing to do with the trees. The chamber’s own Christmas Parade is the festival’s companion rather than its rival, and the two together give the Oxford Hills a short season opener smaller and quieter than the county’s larger summer events.
Checklist
- Confirm the coming edition’s town and hall before travelling, since the venue moved from South Paris to Norway between the documented editions.
- Check the dates and hours for the coming edition; the earlier edition ran Friday evening through Sunday afternoon.
- Bring a way to pay for raffle tickets, and decide which trees to enter for before placing them.
- Dress warmly for the walk between the indoor tree hall and the outdoor parade route.
- Plan transport for a tree if you win one, since a fully decorated artificial tree is bulky.
- Do not assume free viewing for the coming edition, since the 2025 layer states no admission figure.
- Keep the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce in mind as the organiser when checking details, and do not confuse this Festival of Trees with the same-named events in other towns and states.
Beyond the Festival
Norway and South Paris sit among the lakes and low hills of western Maine, and Paris, the county seat, holds the county’s older civic buildings. A visitor in late November will find the towns quiet, the shops dressed for Christmas, and the roads open for short drives into the surrounding country.
The chamber’s role points beyond the trees as well: the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce brings the towns’ businesses and residents together for the season, and the Festival of Trees is one of its public faces. The 2025 newsletter layer’s naming of Oxford Casino Hotel as sponsor shows the same pattern: local businesses backing a local gathering.
Why It Matters
The Festival of Trees matters because it is a community making its own Christmas: trees donated and decorated by local people, a raffle that turns the display into a shared stake, and a parade that brings the towns out onto the street together. Nothing about the event is grand, and that is the point: a chamber, a hall, a set of trees, and a parade, repeated to a fourteenth annual billing in 2025, is a record of a place keeping a habit alive.
The venue move matters too. The event did not pretend to have always stood in one hall; it stood at Twin Town Plaza in South Paris in the earlier edition and at the Norway Armory in Norway in 2025, and the layers record the change without fuss. A festival that can move towns and keep its shape is held together by its people rather than its address. The trees change each year, the donors change, the hall changes, and the gathering goes on.
For the Oxford Hills, the festival is also a marker of the season’s turn. Thanksgiving weekend is when the towns shift from autumn to Christmas, and the tree hall and the parade give that shift a public form. Visitors who come for the trees join a local rhythm rather than watching a performance, and the raffle’s winners carry a piece of that rhythm home.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Festival of Trees is the Oxford Hills one?
The Oxford Hills Festival of Trees is the one hosted by the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce, held in Norway and South Paris in Maine. Festival of Trees events in Rochester, Minnesota, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Oxford, Connecticut, and Oxford, England, are different events, and the Creative Lights Forest Festival in Oxford, England, is different again.
Where has the festival been held?
The 2025 edition stood at the Norway Armory in Norway, and the earlier documented edition stood at Twin Town Plaza in South Paris. The venue moved between those two editions. Neither town is the Oxford County seat; Paris holds that place, and South Paris is a village within the town of Paris. Visitors should confirm the coming edition’s town and hall before travelling.
Is there a charge to look at the trees?
The earlier edition’s layer states there was no admission fee to view the trees. The 2025 layer states no admission figure, so free viewing is documented only for the earlier edition. Raffle tickets are sold separately for a chance to win a tree. Visitors should check the chamber’s current announcement for the coming edition’s admission position.
What runs alongside the tree display?
The chamber’s annual Christmas Parade runs over the same Thanksgiving weekend; in the earlier edition the parade fell on 25 November under the theme The 12 Days of Christmas. The parade is the festival’s outdoor companion, and the tree hall and the parade together make the weekend.
What to Expect From the Next Oxford County Maine Oxford Hills Trees Festival
How often is Oxford County Maine Oxford Hills Trees Festival held?
The Festival of Trees is the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce’s annual gathering, held over the Thanksgiving weekend. The 2025 edition ran 28–30 November and was billed the fourteenth annual Festival of Trees.
When is the next Oxford County Maine Oxford Hills Trees Festival?
The layers read give no date for a coming edition. The 2025 edition ran 28–30 November at the Norway Armory in Norway, and the earlier edition ran 24–26 November at Twin Town Plaza in South Paris. The chamber’s current announcement is the place to confirm the next dates, town, and hall.
Will the dates change?
The dates follow the Thanksgiving weekend, and the 2025 edition ran 28–30 November while the earlier edition ran 24–26 November, so the calendar dates shift with the holiday from year to year. The venue has also moved between editions, from Twin Town Plaza in South Paris to the Norway Armory in Norway.
The Festival of Trees is a small, steady gathering: donated trees in a hall, raffle tickets in hand, and a Christmas Parade outside, held by the Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce at the turn of the season. Its fourteenth annual billing in 2025, its move from South Paris to Norway, and its pairing of trees with parade are all on the record.
