18 hours ago
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She makes the season really bright.
An Ohio woman has 727 Christmas trees in her home, and they are attracting visitors from around the world.
Barbara Hardesty of Columbus welcomes guests every Saturday and Sunday to her Christmas Tree House.
“I just had a couple here from Hawaii. We’ve had people from Spain. Some drive up from Florida and Pennsylvania,” she told The Post. “So far this year, we’ve had over 900.”
The spectacle includes more than 20,000 lights, she estimates.
“I’ve never counted them, but most trees have three or more 100-count strands. Everything’s on a remote. I have four remotes that run the house.”
She also has “no clue” how many ornaments she’s accumulated, but they take up 63 storage bins.
Hardesty always had dozens of trees in her home and hosted an annual open house for charity. But in April 2011, when she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer and going through chemotherapy, her Christmas spirit hit overdrive.
“I didn’t know if I was going to survive, and I just felt like if I pushed myself to go from 60 some trees that I have the year before to 100 and focused on that, then maybe I had a chance.”
In 2020, during the pandemic, she opened her winter wonderland to the public.
“We kept our distance, we had people every 15 minutes, so no one was in the same room unless you came together, and nobody got sick,” she said.
With the help of her husband, Kyle, and son, Greg, she begins taking out the trees and decorations as early as July.
Multiple rooms on her first floor, along with her front windows and back porch, and even her bathroom, are filled with the spruces — decorated in themes from M&Ms to baseballs to vintage letters and classic Christmas movies.
“We have the ‘Christmas Vacation’ tree, with the fried pussycat underneath.”
Hardesty gets creative, using things like children’s books, sock monkeys, PVC pipes, old postcards and even her husband’s grandfather’s saws to trim the bunches and bunches of branches.
“I have a tree that has letters on it that Kyle’s grandfather wrote to his future bride in 1921, ’22 and ’23. And people literally pick them off the tree and read them,” she said.
“My mother had knitted sweaters for my kids when they were little, so I made them into ornaments. And now those sweater circles are on a tree.”
It brings her great joy to watch visitors connect with certain trees.
“I have a M&M tree … and several years ago this lady and little girl came, and they got so emotional, because she had just lost her husband, and he called them ‘M and M’ because their names both start with M.”
At the end of the tour, guests get cookies and hot cocoa made by Hardesty, a professional baker.
“In the last two weeks, I’ve made over 3,700 cookies,” she said. “I even decorate a tree with my cookie recipes written on little cutting boards.”
If they choose, visitors can donate to either Faith Missions, a local homeless shelter, or The Refuge, a faith-based rehab center. Last year, they raised more than $2,700 for the charities.
Hardesty keeps in touch with visitors through the Facebook page, and some even send her thank you gifts.
“I had this little girl several years ago, Averie, she came with her grandparents, and she made me a pine cone angel,” she said.
“Every year, she gets the pine cones, dries them herself, and she figures out a new ornament for my tree. So I gave her her own tree.”
Hardesty credits her labor of love with helping her beat cancer.
“I believe that had a lot to do with it. Just getting my focus off of me and my health and putting it on doing something to help other people, because everybody’s got a story and this time of year is hard for a lot of people,” she said.
“I honestly believe that God has blessed me with this ministry to spread Christmas joy to others.”
English (US)