A young girl’s letter full of Christmas wishes is making its way to the North Pole thanks to a Deer Park couple.
Recently the piece of mail for the jolly elf was dropped into the red mailbox marked — Letters to SANTA — at the home of Ted MacLeay and Sharon MacLeod who celebrate the season with a display of cheerful lights, music, signs and decorations in their front yard, at 76 Deschner Close.
The cute, compact holiday exhibit features Santa in his sleigh with reindeer, along with plenty of festive trimmings.
MacLeay said the letter was from a young neighbour who regularly comes out to visit their holiday display.
“It was the only letter in it so far this year,” MacLeay said about their North Pole postal box that they moved next to the sidewalk to make it easy for youngsters to mail their letters to St. Nick.
He said he will make sure his neighbour’s letter arrives at its destination, along with any other letters that children drop into the mailbox.
“It makes their day. It keeps the Christmas spirit alive,” MacLeay said.
The couple have decked out their yard at Christmas for about 15 years. Each year additions are made. New this year are some stars, a bear, a wagon and more blue twig lights.
MacLeay, who has terminal cancer, said decorating the yard is all about bringing some joy to the community.
“This will probably be my last Christmas. You can’t change it. So we’re doing things just to make people happy.”
“We get a lot of traffic. On Saturday night, it was a steady stream of traffic going by,” said MacLeay who joked that their small yard has enough lights to be visible from space.
Related:
Brightly lit Sylvan Lake house a local holiday tradition
Red Deer’s 2020 Christmas Light tour promises to be brighter than ever
MacLeod designs the display, and a friend does most of the installation and electronics.
“I have four cameras out here so we get to sit in the house and watch (visitors) all come out and take pictures, and look at stuff. It’s fun,” MacLeod said.
The Deschner Close home is listed in Red Deer’s 2020 Christmas Light Tour, and their display is lit up from about 5 to 11 p.m.
“It’s kind of a nice feeling that people are coming to look at all the effort that you do,” MacLeay said.
This year about 250 kids also visited the couple’s Halloween haunted house.
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
