'Maybe we are crazy, but it's for our family'

SACKVILLE - You'd never know it from the outside, but this Christmas Stephen and Joanne Forbes will have the best decorated house in Sackville. There are no lights or inflatable snowman on the front yard, but just inside is a winter wonderland you've got to see to believe.

For more than 16 years, the Forbes have been building a Christmas ornament collection that now ranges in the thousands. Among them: a six-foot-tall talking Grinch, Frosty and Santa; 500 stuffed animals and more than 90 mechanical toys including a bathing Santa singing in the bathroom. At the centre of it all stands the family's pride of the holidays: a one-of-a-kind luminous Christmas tree.

"It all started with one tiny birch tree," said Joanne Forbes. "We had an empty spot in a doorway landing and we wanted something to fill it. I decorated the little tree with a quarter of a can of snow and not even a full package of tinsel. I decorated it with three little ornaments we got at McDonalds, and from there it just went like wild fire."

This year, the biggest ornament in the house was created with six individual birch trees screwed together. The tree was decorated with 23 cans of snow and five packages of tinsel, all placed one at a time. Dozens of themed ornaments - smurfs, Winnie the Pooh and others finish it off.

"Everyone thinks we're crazy," said Forbes. "But they love it and so do we. Our kids have told us if they had to choose between presents and the decorated house, they'd pick the house."

The couple have three kids; Melissa, 29, Mitchell 23, and Morgan, 13.

It would be difficult to replicate what the Forbes have done. Each piece has been carefully chosen and has its own meaning and place in the house.

"We don't just go to Wal-Mart and pick out the 'it' decoration of the year," she said. "That's not what this is about. It's about the feeling we get from the piece, the spirit."

Joanne Forbes's birthday coincidentally - or not so coincidentally - falls on Christmas Day. Her husband starts decorating in mid-November, and doesn't stop until just days before Christmas. Of course, setting it up is the fun part.

"It's funny," she said. "We always have plenty of help putting it together, but everyone has other plans when it's time to put it all away."

Forbes wouldn't even attempt a guess at what the collection would be worth, but she said that has nothing to do with it anyway.

This year they found two little candy cane men to add to their collection.

"It's our thing," she said. "And maybe we are crazy, but it's for our family and our friends, and the looks on the kids' faces when they walk through our door make it all worthwhile."

blhall@eastlink.ca