Acreage southwest of Calgary transformed into a Christmas wonderland

A couple who live in near Calgary transform their home into a Christmas wonderland every holiday season to share with their friends, family and community.

Rocio Prieto and Rob Jaycock start decorating their home near Priddis for Christmas in the middle of October.

It’s a monumental task to get all the decorations positioned just right for the holiday season. Prieto says she likes to rearrange the decorations every year.

“I start with my decoration inside,” she said. “Every year I try to do more and more and more because this is my passion, this is something that I really enjoy and this is something that I really like to share with my friends, with my family and community.”

12 trees

This year the couple have set up 12 Christmas trees all over the house. There are Santas, snow men, nutcrackers and lights in every room of the house but Prieto has a soft spot for elves.

“My favorite part of my Christmas as you can see, are the elves,” she said. “It’s something magical for me, elves are in charge on Christmas to make the gifts for the kids, to bring the letters to Santa so I have on my head since I was a little one, that they are very important for Christmas.”

Prieto is now a proud Canadian and has been married to Jaycock for 10 years. She grew up in Colombia and says the Christmas season is huge there with decorations and lights galore.

“Okay, in Colombia, Christmas is just happiness, gathering families, cheering on the streets together, lights everywhere, food, music, dancing,” she said. “I think that to bring that culture here - even in Canada you can find Christmas but is not the same as Colombia -- so (sharing my decorations) makes me feel very happy.”

Jaycock says the decorations started small but gradually grew over the couple’s 10 years together to now fill the house, surrounding decks and trees on the property.

“There’s a lot of work to it, the amount that my wife Rocio does inside is so much more than the stuff that I have to do outside with the lights,” he said.

“It’s just a collection of a lot of different things that have to do with Christmas,” he added.

“It started smaller, it’s grown and I get a shopping list at this time of year where (Rocio asks) if you’re going into town, can you get this and can you stop here, can you get that and see if they’ve got that here too?”

Jaycock lost track a long time ago on how many Christmas lights he puts up but is thankful for efficient, cost-saving LED bulbs.

People leave notes on the gate across their driveway telling the couple how much they appreciate the outside decorations.

“Well, the electricity bills are always something but yeah -- there’s lots of lights and different strings that we put up along the house of course and then the different trees and it’s hard to really know how many there are exactly.”

Inspiring the neighbours

Karen Swords-Beales lives nearby and spends a lot of time in Prieto’s home during December.

“Myself and my husband Ted are originally Irish,” she said. “So we grew up with the one Christmas tree and the one Nativity, as you do and then we met Rocio and Rob.

“This year, my husband has put up 12 Christmas trees!” she said. “So it has definitely rubbed off on my husband and he sees how happy I am here (at the Prieto’s home) and he tries to make me feel that happy in my own home so I don’t move out.”

Swords-Beales says she’s always impressed at how welcoming Prieto and Jaycock are to friends, neighbors, work colleagues and all their children.

“Rocio throws her doors open to the neighborhood and people love that,” she said. “She’s such a giver and when you come in, you just feel that love and you can’t not be happy when you leave.”

Prieto says the decorations will stay up until February and by then likely hundreds of people will have toured the home.

“I just want to say Merry Christmas,” she said with a smile on her face.