Note from the writer: Click through this interactive presentation with your children and find out what David Milner’s characters are up to.
Snowmen, reindeer and candy canes.
Trains, penguins and elves.
David Milner made his first two Santas out of plywood in the late 1970s. He and his wife Marty decorated their little grocery store at Fifth Street and Roosevelt Avenue with holiday characters until the store closed in 1996.
But he didn’t stop cutting and painting after work in the evenings throughout his career in the forest service and into retirement. Milner, now 78, spent three weeks after Thanksgiving weekend with his wife and daughter installing over 660 wooden cutouts of all types of holiday characters and decorations.
His home in west Loveland at 2594 W. County Road 14 is lined with about 120 colored and crisscrossed candy canes, which all have distinct flavors. The canes welcome visitors to view the elaborate scenes of mice, elves, snowmen, Santa, Jesus and His attendants, penguins and reindeer, all organized with rebar, and planted on both sides of his home.
He places the characters in different configurations every year and uses two electric generators to power the floodlights and Christmas lights that illuminate the set at night.
Penguins clutch signs that say, “Happy Holidays,” and an elf holds aloft one that says “Reindeer Crossing Here.” A half melted snowman begs for snow with his sign.
Milner purchases patterns through the mail and modifies the sets in the pattern collection to double or triple their quantity. He cuts the creatures from 4-by-8-foot sheets of plywood. He adds another body to a towering group of smiling snowmen or reverses the elves to grin and wave in both directions.
“You’re only supposed to have two; one boy and one girl. And I said, ‘you need more than that,” he said about an army of gingerbread figures. Little girls in green dresses and boys in blue overalls beam with their arms spread stiffly at their sides. “My angels … We were only supposed to have three angels and I made, as you can see, 12,” he said.
When Milner paints the figures, he’s quick to change the color if he doesn’t like the look of the finished product.
“Some of them have three coats of paint,” he said.
Milner finds the art of creating and designing his creatures therapeutic and relaxing. He doesn’t want to just sit in front of the “tube.” He doesn’t believe in computers — he doesn’t even own one. He likes to work with his hands and stay busy.
Milner said that families are welcome to come take photos with their children in front of any of the scenes. Marty added that people have brought their babies to pose with baby Jesus in the nativity scenes. It’s a sight to see in the evenings with all the lights, he said.
Milner isn’t planning to stop any time soon. He’s working on a fire station group in his basement. The original fire station didn’t have enough firemen so he’s making six firemen and two fire wagons for the one set. And, of course, they need to face both directions, so he has two sets going. He’s also painting tulips because a friend brought over her wooden tulips that needed to be touched up, and he decided to make some for himself. Next year, his holiday scene could include some brightly-colored winter tulips.
Jessica Benes can be reached at 669-5050, ext. 530, or jbenes@reporter-herald.com. Follow her on Twitter: @JessicaBenes.