Neighbors give years’ worth of joy back to ‘Mr. Christmas’
[anvplayer video=”5147815″ station=”998122″]
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Christmas is quickly approaching and some neighbors are already in the giving spirit to a man who has brought joy and extravagant decorations for years.
Dave Plourde, or Mr. Christmas as neighbors call him, has put up his Christmas display for almost 20 years. The display takes hours of dedicated work and began as his gift to the neighborhood.
“I didn’t do this to outdo anybody, I did this for the people,” Mr. Christmas said. “To maybe bring more smiles, that’s my reward.”
Mr. Christmas has brought smiles to his neighbors’ faces as he has brought people in from across the city and even the state.
“We look out our window and see this house and it brings smiles,” neighbor Nate Bywater said. “We get thousands of cars through here around Christmas time and every single car that comes through here, the joy they get, it makes it just so worthwhile it’s amazing.”
Christmas is quickly approaching and neighbors are already in the giving spirit to a man who has brought joy to them for nearly two decades.
The neighbors loved it so much that, when the 83-year-old veteran wanted to throw in the towel, they pitched in to help Mr. Christmas.
“My wife, she’s on oxygen, and I have to make sure that I can take care of her,” he said, “and basically when I climb up there, I don’t have the balance like I used to. If I fall, who’s going to take care of her?”
“We told him, ‘That’s where you’re mistaken Dave, we’re not asking you, we’re telling you, we’re gonna do it we’re not gonna let you stop,'” Nate said.
For two years now, neighbors have put up the display, added to it and helped take it all down. This year, though, they wanted to help in another way.
“While myself and a couple of other neighbors were up on the roof putting up some of the decorations, we noticed that, in almost two decades of putting decorations up there, the roof had sustained quite a bit of damage,” Nate said.
It wasn’t just his roof, either, as his truck also needed some TLC. That prompted the neighbors to create a GoFundMe page to pay off those expenses.
The GoFundMe page has only been up for 10 days but it has already surpassed its $10,000 goal.
The neighbors say it’s all to thank someone for something that is so priceless to them.
“I get tears in my eyes, it’s gratitude that I’m feeling it’s just amazing,” Mr. Christmas said.
The neighbors showed some more gratitude live Tuesday morning as they surprised the neighborhood icon with one more thing. Click the video above to see what that is.