The first Festival Of Trees happened either in 1984 or 1985 depending on what source one consults.

It has since become the Embassy Theatre’s largest and most beloved annual fundraiser.

In 1985, the first major renovation of the dilapidated theater was still a decade away, so the Festival of Trees was vitally important.

If those early festivals hadn’t been successes, there may never have been any later festivals.

The 2017 edition of the Festival Of Trees starts November 22 and runs through November 29.

It is particularly appropriate now to look at the recent and distant past of the venue because the Embassy will be celebrating its 90th anniversary next year and it is using this year’s Festival of Trees as a launch party of sorts.

“We’re using Festival of Trees to announce all of our programming for that celebration,” said the Embassy’s marketing director, John Hughey.

I asked him to give me a sneak preview of the big reveal but he wouldn’t budge.

“We’re using the Festival of Trees as a bookend,” Hughey said. “We’ll start the celebration with this Festival of Trees and we’ll wrap it up at next year’s Festival of Trees.”

The 2017 Festival of Trees will showcase almost 60 trees, sponsored by local businesses and decorated by professional decorators.

As always, the trees will line the theater lobby, the theater mezzanine and the Indiana Hotel lobby.

The festival’s trees can be scrupulously traditional. And they can be fairly untraditional.

In the past, the Fort Wayne TinCaps offered a baseball-themed tree and a local bank once covered a tree with dollar bills.

There has been a TV-themed tree and a tree with lights that attendees could power by riding a bike connected to a generator.

In 2009, the Embassy had a tree that could be played like a pipe organ.

A new wrinkle this year is a two-tree display devoted to Australia, Hughey said.

The Fort Wayne International Airport is sponsoring a “Christmas in New York” tree, thematically linked to the direct flights to Newark that the airport started offering in 2016.

There will also be a “Star Wars” tree timed to capitalize on the release of “The Last Jedi,” Hughey said.

For most attendees, the Festival of Trees is a beloved holiday tradition. But for some, it’s also a chance to crib holiday decorating ideas from the pros.

That’s OK. There’s no law against it.

And there are also no laws governing the tree trimming process, Hughey said. The sponsor/decorator teams are given no rules to go by.

“We want the creativity to rule,” he said.

The only time the Embassy ever rejected a team’s concept was when they wanted to make a wreath in lieu of decorating a tree.

The venue has the setup of Festival of Trees down to a science, Hughey said.

“Each decorator has an arrival time and a departure time,” he said. “That way each decorator can focus on his or her space.”

The overall holiday preparation process at the Embassy begins in mid-September, Hughey said.

The items that will occupy the animated windows are inspected and tested.

Animated department store window displays have been a Christmas tradition in the United States since the late 1800s when Marshall Fields in Chicago and Macy’s in New York established the custom.

Throughout much of the 20th century, the place in downtown Fort Wayne to see animated Christmas windows was the Wolf & Dessauer department store.

Allen Bixby was the chief window decorator for the store for three decades, according to Fort Wayne historians Jim and Kathie Barron, and he traveled to bigger cities to get ideas.

Many thought Bixby’s creations were superior to any and all others, the Barrons have said.

Scenes featuring animated store window displays are a staple of such Christmas films as “Miracle on 34th Street,” “A Christmas Story” and a number of screen adaptations of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

So it was a shame when the downtown L.S. Ayres department store (which had taken over the Wolf & Dessauer space in 1969) closed in the late 1970s.

Thankfully, the Embassy eventually resurrected the tradition.

In 2005, the Embassy recruited Walter Tharp Jr., one of Wolf & Dessauer’s latter-day window designers, to decorate the venue’s windows.

These days, that job is done by Stan Sheets, Hughey said.

“He rotates the collection each year, creating new vignettes,” he said.

Speaking of holiday films, the Embassy has decided to host a screening of one as part of this year’s festivities.

Hughey said this has been a big movie year for the Embassy.

In late October, the theater hosted a screening of “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial” with live accompaniment from the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

At 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, the theater will offer a showing of the 1954 Michael Curtiz film “White Christmas,” starring Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Danny Kaye.

The movie was a spin-off, of sorts, of the 1942 film, “Holiday Inn,” which also starred Crosby and featured Irving Berlin’s music.

Berlin’s song, “White Christmas,” was first introduced in “Holiday Inn” and proved to be a monster hit. It won the Oscar that year for Best Original Song.

The massive popularity of the song spurred the creation of a second, holiday-themed movie featuring different characters.

The score for the movie “White Christmas” was the last Berlin composed for the silver screen.

Admission to the film is free with a Festival of Trees admission.

A stage musical based on “White Christmas” debuted on Broadway in 2008 and is currently being offered at the Fort Wayne Civic Theatre through November 19.

Live entertainment provided by local arts groups (and by the Embassy’s Grand Page Organ) will happen more or less continuously throughout this year’s Festival of Trees on the Embassy stage, Hughey said.

A venerable associated event, Breakfast with Santa, will also return.

Children can visit with Mr. and Mrs. Claus throughout the festival as well.

Some of the hot toys that the Clauses can expect to hear requests for this year include (according to the Today Show, the Independent newspaper and Toys-R-Us): a build-your-own R2D2, finger monkeys, a Luvabella Doll, a Movi robot, a Sqweeks robot, Hatchimals, Nintendo Switch and (believe it or not) Teddy Ruxpin.

Yes, Ruxpin has risen from the retail dead.

The Festival of Trees is different from other Fort Wayne festivals that happen around this time of year and that can create confusion.

Whereas holiday events at the History Center and the Foellinger Freimann Botanical Conservatory (for example) can last several weeks, the Festival of Trees is only 8 days long.

The reason for this is the nature of what Embassy does, Hughey said.

“As a concert venue,” he said, “we really can only do it one week. We do usually get at least one call in December and people are disappointed.”

Despite only being a week long, the Festival of Trees attracted 22,000 visitors last year, Hughey said.

“We do try to grow that number every year,” he said.

The Embassy was saved in the late 20th century by the work of dedicated volunteers, Hughey said, and events like the Festival of Trees still couldn’t happen without the venue’s volunteers.

“It’s really a community endeavor,” he said. “We could not do this without the volunteers. We could not do this without the sponsors. Really, that community love of the Embassy — that’s how it started 33 years ago. And it still continues.

“And we see no indication that the love affair is ending.” Hughey said.

The live entertainment schedule for the Festival of Trees:

Friday, Nov. 24

12 p.m. – Ellie Paige Dance Academy
1 p.m. – IPFW Saxophone Quartet
2 p.m. – DancinKids Dance Studio
3 p.m. – Fred Astaire Dance Studio
4 p.m. – K. Monique’s Studio of Dance
5 p.m. – New Millennium Jazz Orchestra
6 p.m. – Dance Ltd.
7 p.m. – IPFW Jazz Ensemble

Saturday, Nov. 25

12 p.m. – Dance NY Style Studio of Dance
1 p.m. – The Dance Dolls
2 p.m. – Deer Ridge Vocal Voyagers
3 p.m. – Amaneceres de Mexico Dance
4 p.m. – Tiffany & Co. Studio of Dance
5 p.m. – Julie’s School of Dance
6 p.m. – Smooth Edge 2
7 p.m. – SheeKriStyle Dance Academy

Sunday, Nov. 26

12 p.m. – Starz Dance Academy / Gymnastics in Motion
1 p.m. – Starz Dance Academy / Gymnastics in Motion
2 p.m. – Center Stage Academy of Dance
3 p.m. – North Side High School Choir
4 p.m. – Northeast School of Dance
5 p.m. – Fort Wayne Dance Collective
6 p.m. – Janice Dyson Dance Studio
7 p.m. – Pulse Dance and Performance Center