Drivers should maybe take extra caution if their evening drive takes them down Elmwood Drive in Moncton — Diane Bérubé’s Christmas decorations are so over-the-top, they’re literally stopping traffic.
“We have had a few fenders-benders, but fortunately no one has ever gotten hurt,” said Bérubé, who has been adding to her Christmas display every year for the past 34 years.
Bérubé says she placed her first decoration, a Santa’s sleigh, to make her mother smile.
“My mother lived next door and she just loved Christmas so I did it for her,” Bérubé said.
Bérubé says she’s lost count of the number of people who have stopped in front of her home over the years, but estimates it’s easily in the thousands.
She says people are shocked to discover that her decorations don’t come from a store, but that she designs and even builds the pieces herself with the help of a welder.
For more than three decades, Bérubé has spent the entire year tucked away in her own workshop crafting her latest creations. She says over the years she has tried to hide it all from her grandchildren.
“Whenever I was working on a piece I would hide it behind the door and shut the door and put a note on the door ‘don’t go behind there cause Grampy was making wine and he broke the bottles so it is full of glass.'”
She said an innocent Christmas fib was worth it to see the surprised look on their faces when she hauled out her newest creation.
This year, she added Smurf houses to her display, which includes everything from Barney, carolers, Santa’s sleigh and toy soldiers.
Sadly, Bérubé says the one and only person who has never gotten to see her display in all its glory is her mom. She passed away the very year after she set out that first piece.
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