The mayor of Tbilisi Kakha Kaladze and Prime Minister of Georgia Mamuka Bakhtadze have lit up the city’s main Christmas tree on First Republic Square today. I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year. 2018 has not been one of the easiest for our country and unfortunately, many people are still living in difficult conditions. Georgia needs solidarity as never before. By standing together, with great love, motivation and unity we will address all the challenges we are facing. 2019 will be a much better year,” PM Bakhtadze said. The main Christmas tree will be surrounded by a Christmas village and fair from December 25 to January 7 on First Republic Square.

The festive season has again sparked creative talent among Christmas tree decorators across Georgia, from fire department personnel throughout the country creating trees from their equipment to an upcoming showcase of quirky designs at the Christmas Tree Festival in capital Tbilisi. While streets in cities and towns of Georgia have been illuminated by city halls with lighting for Christmas and New Year’s Eve, individual creators have used their imagination to come up with unusual ideas for dressing up their surroundings. This year’s display of unconventional Christmas trees has been led by pictures from firefighters from across the country.  Asked by the Emergency Management Service to build the trees with obsolete or inoperable equipment at hand, crews in fire departments of all cities took the challenge and sent in photographs of their completed works.

The Service then selected its favourite submissions — from cities and municipalities like Zugdidi in the west, Mtskheta outside Tbilisi, mountainous Kazbegi and Kvareli in the Kakheti province in the east —  and published them in a slideshow video on Thursday.  We have a very busy schedule over the New Year’s Eve — we don’t take any breaks during the night. So we decided to liven up our work [environment] by doing this. We built our original construction by using fire ladders as well as handles for hanging inoperable, written-off equipment we had,” Tamaz Ubilava, Head of Emergency Management and Coordination Service in Zugdidi told Livepress reporters.  A slightly more formal celebration of novel designs for trees will take place over in capital Tbilisi, where the annual Christmas Tree Festival is being readied. On a small but cosy Georgian Cinema Square, located between Bambis Rigi and Rkinis Rigi streets in the downtown, trees from varied material and original construction will be exhibited on Saturday.  With previous editions of the Festival having included trees made out of books and vintage accessories, visitors can look forward to a promising display of creativity. It will be accompanied with sale of handcrafted items, accessories and sweets in this historical area of the city, where vendors sold textile and cotton (hence the name of one of the streets being derived from bamba — Georgian for cotton) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Opening at midday, the Festival will be concluded with a musical performance by the band Goblins on the Square.