This woman’s Christmas wonderland recaptures childhood joy for visitors

Editor’s note: Since this story was originally published in 2019, Sandra Nader has passed away. We remember her Christmas cheer fondly.

Sandra Nader loves giving people tours of her home in Dearborn, Mich.

She’s wearing light-blue Christmas slippers, green sweatpants and a red sweater with a wreath on it.

“I want you to hear this,” she tells me. The melodious vocals of a 3-foot Santa Claus singing began to pour out.

“Ho ho ho! Merrrrrrrry Christmas! It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” 

He looks like one of those plastic light up Santas that people put in their yards. Only he’s right here. In the dining room. Singing and dancing.

“He used to be a karaoke Santa, but the mic doesn’t work anymore,” Nader explains.

This is just one of the many Christmas decorations in her collection. So many, in fact, that even she doesn’t know the grand total.

A Christmas Wonderland

Nader leads a tour of visitors from the Arab American Museum, longtime friends of hers. People come through every year to see her collection, and she welcomes them.

There are angelic choirs, there are jazz Santas with saxes, there are motion-activated snowmen, there’s even a stack of brochures detailing Christmas celebrations from around the world. Every nook and cranny of Nader’s one bedroom apartment is filled with her displays, including the bathroom.

“I’ve been told not to get anymore,” Nader says.

“They’re my toys. It’s a blessing to other people because they enjoy them.” — Sandra Nader

Nader starts putting up her collection the day after Halloween. She says it takes about a week.

She started putting up decorations years ago, in the mid-1990’s, after asking a friend to help put up a tree.

“He was busy watching football,” Nader says. “He said, I’ll do it next week. He never did. So I ended up putting it up a week before Christmas, and I felt like I was cheated out of Christmas. So I said, next year, I’m going to start putting my stuff up right after Thanksgiving and I’m going to decorate every room of the house.”

She says her friends and family are blown away by her display.

“They like them,” she says. “Family doesn’t, you know, give you a lot of compliments but… they do like them.”

Which is great for her, because she lives alone and loves the company her decorations bring each year. Crowds come through for a tour, Christmas trivia and homemade cookies.

“I get to see people, we have a good time together,” she says. “And I enjoy my animated things. They’re my toys. And I just have fun with them and it’s a blessing to other people because they enjoy them.”

“When I make people laugh or happy, it makes me happy,” she says.

From the Mouths of Babes

 “I always saw Santa Claus as a symbol of what we should do, give without wanting anything in return.” – Sandra Nader

Growing up, she says Christmas was a magical time.

“We’d decorate a little bit, but that’s when we got our best presents. And we always got together as a family,” she says.

When she was 9-years-old, she found out Santa wasn’t real.

“A verse from the Bible came into my head that said, ‘If you do not come to me as a child, you will never see the kingdom of heaven.’” — Sandra Nader

“It didn’t affect me, because my mother said it in a nice way. She said, ‘Santa Claus is the spirit of giving.’ So I always saw Santa Claus as a symbol of what we should do, give without wanting anything in return.”

She may be grown up now, but her collection allows her to see the world the way children do. One year she was sitting, surrounded by her decorations, when a Bible verse popped into her head.

“I said, this looks like a child’s playroom,” Nader says. “And suddenly a verse from the Bible came into my head that said, If you do not come to me as a child, you will never see the kingdom of heaven.”

That’s what it’s all about, she says.

“It’s like all the stress from the holidays are just wiped away when they come in here, they really start to feel the joy of the holiday.” — Sandra Nader

“Because children have a strong faith,” she says. “They’re not skeptics like we adults are. We need to save that good part of the child through our adult life.”

The dancing Santas, the talking nativity scenes, the drunk snowman. Everything in her display is a gift — to herself, and to others.

“The memories that I create now with my displays and with people coming over to see everything,” she says. “Those are my best memories. Getting together with my friends. It’s like all the stress from the holidays are just wiped away when they come in here. And they really start to feel the joy of the holiday and have a great time. And that’s the biggest and best memory.”

This story was produced as part of the Transom Traveling Workshop in Detroit.