By Kalena Reynolds | Staff Writer
The residents of Mountainview neighborhood in Waco decided to take a unique and heartwarming approach to show holiday festiveness this year by creating a multiple-street Santa village within the neighborhood.
Mountainview resident Becki Shepherd brought the idea to her neighbors and was originally inspired after seeing a social media video of someone doing the same thing in a Chicago neighborhood. Shepherd later sent the video in her neighborhood group chat, which ultimately set off planning and implementation for the display.
“We all just decided to purchase one or two of them [inflatable Santas] and gift one, and then just kind of go with it,” Shepherd said. “If seven happened, great. And maybe it’ll spread, and other people will see what we’re doing.”
Shepherd and the other members of her group chatted, and then they decided to print out flyers advertising an “inflation day,” which would act as the big reveal of the inflatable Santas.
“She’s like, ‘I can put a QR code on it, and then I can host, like, an inflation day,'” Shepherd said. “If we pick a day that we’re all going to put them up, and then we could just do cookies and cocoa, and it could be kind of a neighborhood meetup.”
Shortly after the flyers went out, many of the houses in the neighborhood decided to order inflatable Santas of their own, turning into a total of 50 Santas spanning five-and-a-half streets.
“I feel like the people who maybe didn’t get a flyer, or maybe it got tossed, they’ve noticed that there are the same Santas everywhere, so they’ve been asking in the next door app, how they can get one, where they get it,” Shepherd said.
Mountainview resident Erin Rogers said the main focus of the Santa village is to spread joy and the Christmas spirit around the city of Waco.
“That was definitely a goal of this project was just to spread holiday joy and cheer within our neighborhood, and I think we definitely accomplished that,” Rogers said.
Rogers also said that it was neat to see the faces of all generations, from kids to grandparents, enjoying the inflatable Santas.
For those who want to see the inflatable Santas for themselves, the display runs along Arroyo Rodd, Meadow Wood Drive, Cedar Point Drive and Lockwood Drive.
Because of the positive feedback from the neighbors and the city of Waco, Rogers said residents plan to make this an annual tradition.
“I don’t know what it’s going to look like specifically for next year, but we got a lot of really great feedback from neighbors,” Rogers said. “And it may be that we add inflatables or that we do something completely different, but I think the overall goal of just bringing everyone together was accomplished, and I think we would like to replicate that in some form or fashion for next year.”
