A Claus For Celebration - Jo's Jolly Passion

Is this New Zealand’s biggest festive fan?

- Lynley Ward

It’s not hard to believe Jo Haynes loves Christmas – so much so, in fact, that for many years she would put all her household furniture into storage come September and turn her home into a festive wonderland!

These days the home no longer needs to be packed up. Instead, a giant purpose-built shed on her rural Manawatū property means she can indulge in her irrepressible yuletide passion.

Celebrating Christmas has been dear to her heart right from when she was a little girl, when her extended family would gather under one roof.

“I loved it,” she says. “We always used to have Christmas at Foxton Beach because my aunty had a beach house out there. My mum would put a stocking at the end of my bed and I must have been the worst child for going to sleep on Christmas Eve. I was continually waking up and then we’d be awake at four in the morning.

“I’ll never forget those beach-time memories. As I got older and got my own home, I wanted to bring them back.”

The decorations started off low-key at her Palmerston North home but became grander by the year.

“It got to the stage where I decorated one of our homes big-time. I went completely crazy and put all my furniture into storage so I had a blank canvas to work with and decorated the whole house!”

It included themed rooms, complete with sand on the floor of the dining room for a beach setting, bark in the “enchanted forest” in the lounge, and colour-coordinated trees to match each bedroom’s decor.

Jo (61) reckons she had at least a dozen decorated full-size Christmas trees and many other smaller versions, bringing a festive touch to every room.