It's only the first week of December but families across the country are well and truly embracing the Christmas spirit and covering their homes with thousands of lights and decorations. The most festive streets in Britain are drawing crowds from as far away as China as tens of thousands of twinkling lights cover the country. Among the sparkling seasonal streets is one on the Wirral in Merseyside, where a couple has collected £20,000 for charity over 20 years, while a festive fan in East Sussex has covered his home in nearly 10,000 decorations. And Trinity Close in Burnham-On-Sea, Somerset dubbed 'Britain's most festive street' has a display of more than 100,000 lights.
It has been organising the display for ten years, raising nearly £100,000 for charities. Meanwhile, in another part of the country, one couple who love Christmas has spent the last five weeks covering their house in festive decorations for the twentieth year running. Karen, 55, and Frank Williams, 56, have been decorating the front of their house, in The Wirral, for the past 20 years to give their neighbours some festive cheer. Despite initially covering their house in lights for the first eight years just for their own enjoyment, the couple has since been raising money for charity Claire House Children's Hospice and have collected over £20,000.
And, with some encouragement, the couple convinced the rest of the neighbours to join in and decorate their houses meaning that the Saughall Massie street could be one of the most festive in the UK. Karen, a painter, said: 'We've been doing the lights for the past 20 years and we'll be doing it until we have our last breath.' I and Frank started putting our Christmas decorations up at the end of October, and just finished recently. Then when ours are done, I go and help the neighbours do there's too.' We did the big Christmas light switch on last Friday (November 30), where everyone in the street turned theirs on in unison. I love Christmas, but mainly it's about seeing the enjoyment on the children's faces when they see the lights. Also, it's a great way to spread Christmas cheer, whilst raising money for an amazing charity.' Alongside decorating the house, the Christmas fans also keep the magic of Christmas alive in other ways.
She said: 'We keep a post box outside of our house, and children can post their letters to Santa in there. 'Then every night, I take all of the letters and write letters from Santa back to send to the children. I usually get through 350 letters a month.' And Frank has dressed up as Santa for years he puts on his £350 suit and hops on the sleigh he built outside.' All of this helps us raise even more money for charity and doesn't take much time or money. In fact, our electric bill only goes up by £60 for the entire month we have them up! It's all worth it for the ill children life is hard enough for those children, so it's great that we can help give them a magical Christmas.'
