Spirit of giving in the air at Toronto Road Holidays
Dec 24, 2025
Holiday decorations on houses and in neighborhoods are a fun tradition for families who put them up each year. One Lexington house has turned into a local attraction with a special way to give back to families who visit.Over the
last 20 years, Toronto Rd. Holidays has blown up with a yard full of Christmas inflatables.We started it for our two girls and then it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, said Shirley Richie.Along with her husband Johnny, the two put out more than 100 inflatables each year.This isn't even all of it, she said.The yard has plenty of familiar characters, including Frosty the Snowman on each side. Richies favorite is the one that has a projector playing the movie on Frostys stomach.This December, Richie says her front yard has been really busy during the nights.TikTok and Facebook has really, really brought us a lot of people, she said. Last night you couldn't even really drive down the road. I'm sorry for my neighbors sometimes.This holiday house is a great attraction for families to come and see the inflatables, but one more recent tradition is a sleigh filled with toys to give away to kids.I just started picking up random stuff when I went shopping, a little bit here, a little bit there, Richie said. Then I was like, what am I going to do with this stuff? Then we found the sleigh, and we were like, let's just do a sleigh for everybody that stops by.Now we have kids that come by. They say, let me see what I'm going to get this year. They'll say, I still have my stuffed animal from 2 years ago.This small act of kindness quickly caught on with the community bringing donations as well.Some people on our Facebook page bring [gifts], Richie said. Sometimes we'll come out here and there'll just be a box of toys sitting next to it or there's added stuff to it.Its this Christmas spirit of giving that makes the Toronto Rd. Holidays unique.It just means that everybody just cares a little bit about somebody else besides just their self, said Richie. I really appreciate that.
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