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DALLAS — If the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” were to expand beyond 10 lords a’ leaping, 11 pipers piping and 12 drummers drumming, Barb Tinner’s home on Robbins Road would be an ideal place to find 16 snowmen smiling.
While other holiday houses might have more wreaths, more Santa sleighs or more lights, Tinner’s surely deserves some sort of icicle-shaped trophy based on the sheer number of snow people she displays, all of them different.
“I just like snowmen,” she said, explaining it’s taken several years to amass her collection.
The contingent of mostly wire figures includes a snowman with ski poles, another on a sled, one with a red top hat, one with a black top hat, one with a white top hat, one holding a little Christmas tree, one with red and green buttons, one holding a strand of lights, one holding a candy cane, one with a blue hat, one with red and blue mittens, one holding a broom, one standing guard over three Christmas presents and one sporting a fashionable burlap jacket.
A doll-size fellow with blue eyes seems to be the smallest; one with gauzy cotton giving the appearance of snow on his hat is close to 6-feet tall.
“They do a really nice job,” neighbor John Simonsky said earlier this week as he walked his 10-month-old Siberian husky, Grizz, past the house. “It’s very neat, the way they do it. They decorate for Halloween, too.”
Other nearby houses got into the decorating spirit, too, with Snoopy and Rudolph on one lawn and a “tree face” making a sturdy trunk look very much like a woodsy Father Christmas, thanks to a Santa hat and white beard.
While Tinner enjoys her snowman decorations, she’s not a huge winter fan and does not build snow sculptures with real snow after a storm.
“It’s not that I dislike winter,” she said. “But I like spring and summer better.”
In any case, Tinner said, her daughter Joyce deserves credit for taking care of the wiring in the Christmas display.
