This past Saturday, Dec. 17 the Erskine home of Cammy Gendre was lit up for people to come in and enjoy the festive spirit with donations for Stettler Food Bank.
Although this is the fifth year, Cammy Gendre originally started decorating in memory of her father, Daniel Jacques, who had passed away.
"Because he loved Christmas so much, I kept decorating more and more and this year we have reached over 40,000 light," said Gendre. "We love that the parents are visiting around the fire while the children can sled down the hill and play hide and seek in the forest where all the lit-up trees are. Some of the kids even ended up sliding through several strings of pink lights, it was a pretty cute sight."
With approximately 400 people coming from the community and surrounding areas, and even beyond, the light up was a huge success.
"We received over eight Rubbermaid containers of food and over $150 dollars in cash donation," Gendre added. "We chose the Food Bank because people around here have been struggling this year and getting enough food has been hard for a lot of families."
Kerri Pothier, Gendre's sister who had successfully held her light-up event earlier in November said, "It was a wonderful event and despite subzero temperatures there were hundreds of people that came out to event, and the best part is a good amount of food was collected and it was a very touching and beautiful event for many families."
Pothier said that both her sister and her husband, Louis Gendre have been working hard the past few months to get the lights up, putting in long days despite the weather to get ready for the event.
The laneway leading to the place was lit up with lights criss-crossing overhead in arches and there were several paths off to the side all of which had lights and characters from various fables and children's movies in them.
"One of my favourite things to see was the candy cane cove," said Gendre. "It was a path decorated with candies, some changing colours, some singing, and at the end of the pathway of candies was a sign which read 'Candy Canes, Help Yourself.'"
Gendre said that it made her smile to hear the children squeal with delight at discovering the secret cache of candy canes.
"They were so excited and would dive down on their knees to pick out a candy," Gendre explained with a big smile on her face.
Many of the small children also came into the Gendres' house to pick a stuffed animal off a special tree that they had made. By the end of the evening, the Gendres would have given out at least 100 stuffed animals and had a lot of the children very happy.