At the Douglas County Parks and Trails Division office in Highlands Ranch, a 3-foot-tall Christmas tree holds a bevy of family treasures: custom ornaments, about 30 of them, forgotten on trees after the holiday season.

County workers find dozens of ornaments every year on trees discarded as part of a county program. Most of the time, the ornaments are hidden after a tree was stripped of its decorations. Other times they find trees fully decorated. The commercial-looking decorations, like the ball ornaments, are thrown away. That used to be the fate of all forgotten ornaments until last year.

County workers began collecting ornaments they thought held sentimental value. On one ornament is a photo of a golden retriever. On another is a silver cup with a teddy bear that says “Baby's First Christmas 2000.” Another has a photo of a baby girl named Lucy on her first Christmas from 2005.

Randy Burkhardt, of Douglas County Parks and Trails, said the reasons for collecting the ornaments is personal.

“We think of the county citizens as family. We know that if someone in our family had lost one of these, we would want to get it back to them.” Burkhardt said. Burkhardt is the assistant director of parks, trails and building grounds. “We want to get them back to the place they should be. Not on our tree of lost ornaments, but where they should be.”

The Douglas County Parks and Trails department collects discarded Christmas trees after the holidays as a service to residents. The trees are shredded by a wood chipper at three locations across the county.

The “Christmas Tree of Lost Ornaments” at the Highlands Ranch office sits in the building's lobby decorated from top to bottom with lost-and-found family ornaments. The oldest one dangling from a branch is labeled as belonging to the Yelk family and dated from 1984.

“Someone may have lost it and not even known it,” Burkhardt said. “Here's an opportunity for them to possibly find something that has sentimental value.”

So far, no one has claimed any of the saved ornaments. Each ornament is photographed and posted in a slideshow on the county's website, douglas.co.us/dcoutdoors/lost-ornaments.

Burkhardt said his favorite ornament will be the first one that returns to its rightful owner.

“We see this as building upon itself,” Burkhardt said. “I'm sure families think, 'Oh, they're gone forever.' Well, maybe not.”