AUBURN — For some, Christmas cheer is hanging a wreath on the door, stringing the exterior with lights, and erecting a tree that the cat will inevitably knock down.

For Roland Bergeron of Auburn, Christmas spirit doesn’t stop there. For the past 60 years, Bergeron has turned the inside of his family homestead into a holiday wonderland.

“Everywhere we go, it’s Christmas,” said Bergeron as he walked past a wall-sized jukebox playing original recordings of Christmas classics.

Walking through his home, every room is meticulously decorated with vintage decorations and scenes, even the bathrooms. In the dining room upstairs, tables are set up against the wall with Christmas villages set up on top.

“I’m getting older,” Bergeron said. “I used to put all my villages on the floor, but now I had to elevate things.”

Bergeron started extensively decorating for Christmas early on, helping his mother and father decorate as a teenager. Now 73, Bergeron has had plenty of time to hone his collection, most of which is passed down from his family.

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In the dining room, an evergreen centerpiece his sister made before she was married. Golden ornaments crafted by his mother who died in 2002.

Bergeron said that although his collection expands every year, certain pieces stay, including the main centerpiece, preserved exactly as it was when it was made decades ago.

“This is an accumulation of at least 50 years of stuff,” Bergeron said. “I take good care of my stuff.”

There’s a miniature manger in every room in Roland Bergeron’s house, he reminding that Nativity scenes tell the true story of Christmas – a holiday he begins preparing for in October.

And he has a lot of it: Bergeron said he can’t put an exact number on the decorations in his home, but it must be somewhere in the thousands.

Each room has a manger scene. Bergeron said the manger and Nativity scenes tell the true story of Christmas. Other rooms have themes. There’s a Disney Room, with a large Christmas-themed Disney Castle, a display case full of Snow Babies, white ornaments depicting children celebrating Christmas, purchased from the now-defunct Gooseberry Farms in Auburn.

“Someone told me I should put it all down on a piece of paper – who gave me this. It would take me a very long time,” Bergeron said.

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For Bergeron, every decoration came from somewhere, and each has a story.

“Every little piece means something. I know who gave me this, I know who gave me that,” he said.

Years ago, Bergeron said, an acquaintance was moving into a nursing home, and before she moved, she gifted him several porcelain Christmas dolls. She’s still alive, and every year, Bergeron makes sure she comes over and sees them displayed in his home.

Bergeron said transforming his home is a lot of work. He starts decorating in October and takes frequent breaks, pausing to nap every few hours. But he continues to decorate for one simple reason: The light it brings to the faces who walk through his home.

“You see them, and their faces light right up,” he said.


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