Neighbours rally to decorate 85-year-old widow’s home after it was robbed
A California neighbourhood is rallying around a women whose home was robbed of its decorations by what we can only assume is a local Grinch.
After 85-year-old Natalie Conkel’s light machine was stolen from her home, her community decorated her entire house with new lights and Christmas decorations. As this year was the first Christmas Conkel would celebrate since her husband’s death, the gesture from her neighbours was particularly heart-warming.
"This is wonderful. I am really, really shocked and very grateful and very thankful to have such wonderful neighbors," she told KTVU. “Now I can celebrate Christmas. Now it will be much better.”
Conkel’s husband passed away five years ago and ever since, Conkel has found in difficult to celebrate Christmas. This year, however, she was ready to start celebrating again and had purchased an outdoor light machine to project red and green lights onto the house. It was stolen just days after she set it up.
Conkel confided in her neighbour, Leslie Lewis, who gathered the town’s community to redecorate Conkel’s house.
"From there it just kind of snowballed and we had tons of people dropping off decorations at my home every day leading up to the day we decorated her house," Lewis told the news outlet.
The neighbourhood-wide mission to decorate Conkel’s house was top secret, with Conkel’s son, David, taking his mother out to dinner while dozens of people adorned the home with Christmas cheer.
When the pair returned, Conkel was greeted with Christmas carols sung by an elementary school choir and hot chocolate and goodies from local businesses.
"It's so nice to see people that I don't even know coming together for me, a stranger," Conkel told Today.com. "It was beyond nice and beyond wonderful."
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