Decorative traditions
Summerside family paints front windows each year to kick off the holidays
Nicole Winchester and her sister gently touch the paintbrush to the windows. The bristles transfer colours of yellow, white, blue and red as they go.
“It’s become a family tradition to paint our front windows with Christmas inspired themes,” said their mom, Yvette.
Missing from this year’s annual painting party was sister Taylor.
“It was a little lonely without her,” said Nicole.
Yvette added with a chuckle, “She didn’t get back from school until Dec. 16 and we couldn’t wait until then.”
Yvette and her sister, Anne Gallant, started painting the windows in 2006.
“The first year was just three Christmas pictures that we liked. But as it continued the girls would pick the themes or inspiration for the windows.” Each of the three windowpanes went towards telling the story of a movie or a book.
This year was ‘Santa’s Apprentice,’ a 2010 cartoon movie about an orphaned boy who is selected to become Santa’s successor when he retires.
The Winchester sisters decided to make it their own in 2015.
“Taylor decided she was going to do it, so we kind of had a trial run at Halloween, drawing Halloweentown from ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ as like a prequel to our Christmas theme,” said Nicole.
Each year the project takes about two to three days to complete and countless bottles of paint. “We clear out the paint section in the dollar stores. We throw a bit of dish soap into the paint and then get to work. It comes off without a problem after that,” said Holly. Usually Nicole picks the theme, but in the end it’s a large team effort.
“My favourite part is the planning part and creating a concept, because I can’t draw,” she said with a smile.
“Each year the themes have grown and changed as we have, it’s really fun,” she added.
In 2017, they painted their windows with the silhouette of the Pennywise clown from the popular Stephen King book and movie adaptation ‘IT’.
“Taylor wasn’t a big fan of that,” said Yvette.
Holly’ favourite part of the annual painting sessions is getting the lines drawn and losing herself in the Christmas music playing. “The first sketch is the hardest part and takes forever to get everything just right. But listening to the carols you get into the zone and that’s really fun.”
Yvette feels lucky her daughter have continued the tradition.
“It’s great. I love watching them do it all. It started with my sister and me and now it’s like ‘oh, it’s their project’ I’ll go back some cookies. I’m lucky my daughters are so artistic.
Holly’s favourite display was a ‘A Nightmare Before Christmas because they did it for two events, while Nicole’s was ‘Mickey’s A Christmas Carol’, because it was one of her favourite childhood movies.
“My favourite has to be our Charlie Brown display from a few years back, solely for nostalgic reasons.”
Now Nicole and Holly are gearing up to clean the window until the next year.
“It’s something we look forward to all year long,” said Holly.