Christmas has always been very special for the Pothiers of Gadsby, but it is especially powerful this year after a frightening spring.
The couple, who spent the past two years working in Fort McMurray, had just returned to their Gadsby home of 10 years just days before The Beast, an out-of-control forest fire, jumped the river and swept through the city in May.
On Saturday, Nov. 19 the Pothiers lit up their display consisting of over 35,000 lights as approximately 300 people from the area and beyond visited and participated in the Christmas wonderland that they had designed.
"We have decorated in Gadsby for six years now and started with a few lights and decorations and then it grew from there," said Kerri Pothier. "We competed for a few years with my sister Cammy Gendre who lives on a farm outside Erskine, she has almost as many lights now as we do."
The Pothiers received a lot of feedback from friends and family who really liked the lights and so they just kept adding more and more and now run over 35,000 lights, 160 lighted candy canes, over 70 lighted trees and over 40 displays with more than 150 characters.
"When I saw a little girl of about two years petting the crystal baby fawns or the group of eight kids who stood watching the 3-D projector where Santa was reading a pop-up book of the night before Christmas, those moments are priceless," Pothier added. "They were so enthralled. The kids get so excited at the candy gingerbread house. In past years we had a lovely senior citizen say to us that her husband and she used to love decorating but they can't put up the lights anymore and she was so thankful that we do this."
The Pothiers had a fire going in the backyard and served homemade hot chocolate, hot dogs, and 16 different kinds of home-baked cookies.
The evening was also a drive for the Stettler Food Bank, with the Pothiers receiving cash donations and eventually filling five tubs with food for the Food Bank.
"We chose the Food Bank as one of the local charities because so many people are out of work this year and we've seen the need in this community," Pothier said. "Just before Halloween, there was a post on social media about someone giving away expired food and there were so many people asking for it, so we contacted some of the people and brought them food."
According to Pothiers, there are so many people in the community who are hungry and can't afford the cost of groceries so they selected the Food Bank to help meet some of the needs.
"We had a great turnout today," Pothier said. "But we couldn't have done it without the support of our family, including my sister Cammy Gendre, my niece Elizabeth Herrell, my nephews Timothy and Jordan Herrell and their friends Walter and Lincoln. Also my neighbours Ray and Rob who helped us climb trees to string lights. And a big thank you to my mom, Shirley Jacques for helping us with so many decorations over the years."
As kids and adults went through the wonderland, enjoying the fire and all the refreshments that were being served, in wonder of the many decorations, that little part of Gadsby at least for Saturday evening was transformed into a Christmas paradise.
"My husband and I love decorating for Christmas and we look forward to putting on the lights up each year," Pothier said.