I haven’t been around princesses much lately.  When my youngest “princess” was growing up, her dad and I could sing every song in Beauty and the Beast.  Today’s moms and dads hear, “Let it go, let it go” ‘til they wish it were gone.

Given my years away from the princess scene, you’ll understand my double-take when viewing one of Memorial Medical Center’s Festival of Tree trees.  INB is a festival sponsor, and as a sponsor we traditionally have gotten a tree for the main bank lobby. Jamie Singer, the bank’s vice president, treasury services, and I took on the job of picking out this year’s tree.  Since we’ve been introducing our updated look in 2015, I suggested we carry that through to our Christmas decorations.

Jamie and I walked around the night of the Festival of Tree’s Gala and identified all the trees decorated primarily in “our” blue, “our” green, or silver.  Our plan is to place two trees on either side of the festival tree.  We’ll use the two additional trees to incorporate “our” color if we need to.  But the festival tree will be the focal point.

One of the all blue trees was dressed in a princess ball gown.  So she made our list.

After walking around and viewing all 105 trees we had to choose from, Jamie and I sat down to prioritize our tree list. This is serious business, best handled with a glass of wine. We started with a tree that was absolutely perfect, “Remembering our Veterans,” decorated in both “our” blue and green. Several others also had both colors, so we put them at the top of our list.  When we looked at the many other single color trees, it was hard to say which we liked best.  When we got to the princess tree, Jamie laughed and said, “We’ll take a lot of heat if we get this one.  The guys won’t like it.”  “The guys” are the INB employees who were sure to come around and ask, “What were you thinking?”  I agreed it probably wasn’t my number one choice.  My concern was the blue is not quite Pantone PQ-310C – our light blue ink color.  And maybe a princess in our lobby would be a little odd. We are a bank after all.

But sometimes things just happen.  In our case, it was the tree lottery. INB was among all the sponsor entries eligible for 7’ trees. All 105 sponsors had their names thrown in the proverbial “hat.”  Ours was the 95th pick.  By that time, our two-color choices were gone . . . and we simply knew number 20 was still on the list.  So we took it.  It wasn’t until Jamie dashed around and found number 20 that we learned how we’d be showing off our new colors this Christmas.

And now on Nov. 30, or shortly thereafter, INB will receive a princess for the lobby . . . Princess Elsa from the movie Frozen, to be exact.  She deserves a royal stay.  After all, from what I’ve read, Frozen has many underlying themes, including being true to yourself.  So, guys, we’re going to embrace our holiday princess.  We might even throw her a party.

We hope if you miss her at the Festival of Trees, you’ll stop by and see her at INB, 322 E. Capitol Ave., Springfield.  Photos encouraged!