It’s not hard to believe Jo Haynes loves Christmas – so much so, in fact, that for many years she would put all her household furniture into storage come September and turn her home into a festive wonderland!
These days the home no longer needs to be packed up. Instead, a giant purpose-built shed on her rural Manawatū property means she can indulge in her irrepressible yuletide passion.
Celebrating Christmas has been dear to her heart right from when she was a little girl, when her extended family would gather under one roof.
“I loved it,” she says. “We always used to have Christmas at Foxton Beach because my aunty had a beach house out there. My mum would put a stocking at the end of my bed and I must have been the worst child for going to sleep on Christmas Eve. I was continually waking up and then we’d be awake at four in the morning.
“I’ll never forget those beach-time memories. As I got older and got my own home, I wanted to bring them back.”
The decorations started off low-key at her Palmerston North home but became grander by the year.
“It got to the stage where I decorated one of our homes big-time. I went completely crazy and put all my furniture into storage so I had a blank canvas to work with and decorated the whole house!”
It included themed rooms, complete with sand on the floor of the dining room for a beach setting, bark in the “enchanted forest” in the lounge, and colour-coordinated trees to match each bedroom’s decor.
Jo (61) reckons she had at least a dozen decorated full-size Christmas trees and many other smaller versions, bringing a festive touch to every room.
This story is from the December 9 2019 edition of New Zealand Woman's Weekly.
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This story is from the December 9 2019 edition of New Zealand Woman's Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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