Denise Carrillo stands next to her tallest Santa decoration.
In a feat of festive splendor, Denise Carrillo, of Rio Communities, shared her splendid Santa Claus decoration collection at her home.
“Well, I started doing it for my kids when they were little,” says Carrillo. “Because we always want to make their Christmas special and, before I knew it, I just kept going and going.”
Carrillo’s passion for collecting Saint Nicholas decorations started when her son was just a year old in 1992. From then on, she would only buy one a year — until 2000. That is when “They started rolling in like crazy,” and the real collection started.
After last year’s holiday season, Carrillo had around 900 Kris Kringle decorations, but in the last few months she bought about 110 more. She’ll buy them throughout the year whenever she sees one she likes but there’s not one duplicate in the bunch — they are all unique.
When Carrillo is on the hunt for Santa decorations, she looks for a specific face that reminds her of the image of Santa Claus she remembers from her youth.
When Christmas arrives, Carrillo’s house turns into a magical wonderland. With Santas scattered everywhere, she has to carve out pathways between rooms to get around because they fill up every nook and cranny.
Saint Nick comes in all sizes at Carrillo’s home, ranging from tiny 1-inch elf-sized decorations to towering 5 1/2-foot, full-sized Santas.
Alongside the traditional Santa decorations, you will see some mechanical Santas as well. Because her family are Dallas Cowboys fans, there are also some Santas proudly rocking Cowboys’ gear.
The jolly old elf even claimed the top spot on Carrillo’s Christmas tree. Instead of the usual star or angel, they have Santa Claus leading their Christmas celebrations as a tree topper.
Setting them up takes quite a bit of time, so Carrillo keeps the decorations up until the last week of January.
“It takes forever,” Carrillo said. “It’s crazy and I think that’s why my daughter hates it because it takes me so long to do it.”
Because there are so many of them, the Carrillo’s dedicated a whole storage shed just for the Santa decorations. Unfortunately, her wonderland is only for the Carrillo family and friends.
“I’m not gonna go crazy and invite the whole town, but I’m gonna invite some people,” she said.
Carrillo’s friends have been trying to get her to make it public but in the meantime, she will have close friends and family over for an open house to go check it out for themselves.
Carrillo says she has no plans to stop putting them up anytime soon.
“I’m just gonna keep going until I guess I just can’t put them up anymore,” she said.
Jesse Jones lives in Albuquerque with his wife and son. Jesse graduated from of the University of New Mexico twice. This spring, he graduated with a degree in multimedia journalism and, in 2006, he received a bachelor’s degree in university studies with an emphasis in photojournalism. He is a current fellow of the New Mexico Local News Fund.
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May 2, 2024
