There are many in the Indre-et-Loire to light up gardens and houses in Christmas colors. For some, these decorations are a real passion. This is the case of Laurence Russeau, maternal assistant, and her husband who live in Chambray-lès-Tours. For them, Christmas decorations represent an investment of time and money, says Laurence Russeau: “In installation, it takes us about sixty hours in total time for two.”
Every year, the ritual is the same. “You have to bring down the boxes that are stored, unpack everything, check the connections, retest all that while trying not to tear any wires”, details the maternal assistant. From year to year, some decorations no longer work. Two choices are then available to decorators: repair or buy back.
A rewarded investment
Michel Guincetre, inhabitant of Saint-Avertin, chose the option of repairing as much as possible. He is a retired electrician: “The connections, the electric batteries, the technical part, it’s me, while the aesthetic part, it’s more my wife.” In Chambray-lès-Tours, Laurence Russeau and her husband try to repair, but “every year, we buy a few odds and ends, it goes up very, very quickly”, she explains.
The investment in Christmas decorations is paying off, believes the Chambraisienne: “We try to coordinate all the different colors so that it is pretty. For us already, for our grandchildren, but also for the other children who stop in front of the house with their parents, their grandparents.”
Other children also benefit. “The little ones when they arrive, it’s already lit up, they say ‘wow’, they are impressed”, says the nursery assistant. For Laurence Russeau, her best anecdote is with a colleague: “She would come with her grandchildren who believed in Santa Claus and text us to tell us not to go out, because it’s Santa’s house, and so they would drop us pancakes to eat.”