Photography by Maree Wilkinson
Angela Thomson and her Christmas Magic Makers shop might be packed with 40,000 decorations and more than 100,000 lights, but she’s still planning to add more.
“That’s all I do in my spare time – I google!” she laughs. “What’s out there? What else can I bring in?”
The mum-of-nine set up her permanent Christmas shop on Te Puke’s main street in 2017. Although the business isn’t a money maker, she provides happiness by sharing her holiday obsession, which stretches to her half-sleeve tattoo of Santa, Mrs Claus and festive lights.
Since she opened the store, she’s invested nearly $500,000 of family savings and inheritance into it. Angela, 59, admits some people judge her for spending so much – but after some life struggles, including suffering from hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, a rare genetic disorder that causes abnormal blood vessels and can lead to serious bleeding, as well as depression, giving back is her life’s purpose.
“As long as I have enough to pay the bills, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “Some people think I’m crazy, but money means nothing to me. For children, coming here is a treat – you can tell some don’t have much. I also have older visitors who are lonely and they come to get that ambience. There’s so much awful happening in the world now and we need more happiness.”
Her love of Christmas stems from childhood. Due on 25 December but born nearly three weeks early, her mum always strived to give her three kids a memorable Christmas and Angela recalls being an imaginative child.
“Mum would say I was always down the bottom of the garden with the fairies!”
After leaving school, she joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force, where she met her first husband. Angela always wanted a big family and the couple had seven kids, Jeremy, 37, Christopher, 36, Benjamin, 34, Mathew, 33, Brittany, 32, Sara-Jane, 30, and Samuel, 28. Then Thomas, 24, was born during a short relationship after her marriage broke up.
During labor, Angela was given penicillin, suffered anaphylaxis, and starved Samuel of oxygen. He has spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy.
“It was a really challenging time already having six kids and giving Samuel the extra care he needed,” she recalls. “But what he’s achieved is amazing and he’s our very special angel on Earth!”
Angela has struggled with clinical depression since Samuel’s birth, but over the years, she has found ways to manage this debilitating condition.
“Doing something nice for others and bringing smiles to faces is definitely the best medicine,” she tells. “Positive confirmations are now also a daily ritual.”
Solo mum Angela enrolled at the University of Auckland and studied environmental law. She earned a PhD, passed the bar, and met her second husband, Phil, who works in the kiwifruit industry. Together, they had a ninth child, 19-year-old Katie.
Angela wrote a research book for Auckland Council on the history of the Whau River before she and Phil moved to Te Puke in 2016. She confesses they chose their home because it was perfect for festive decorating.
Outside, they use a cherry picker to string 3000 lights, and they have more than 40 light-up figurines and inflatables, including a 2.4m-tall teddy bear. Inside, the décor stretches from Yuletide bedding to bows on the spiral staircase and 12 Christmas trees.
Angela and Phil’s first Christmas in Te Puke saw them open their home to the public, then the idea of a permanent shop emerged. While Phil isn’t as Christmas-mad as she is, he is supportive.
“I came up with the idea and Phil built everything for me,” she says of the rented 260m2 shop they paid to renovate with their landlord’s approval.
It has different-themed alcoves, a Santa’s Cave (an interactive, walk-through grotto) and shelves holding everything from $2 stocking fillers to three $2300 velvet-clad Santas.
“I have regulars from the South Island who will come for a weekend,” she enthuses. “Then people will also come from the North Pole! They’ve seen real Santa shops in America and they tell me my shop is just as lovely. That brings tears to my eyes.”
Angela admits it’s hard not to take everything in her store home. She grins and says, “If I like something in the shop, I wait until the last week of December. If it hasn’t sold by then, I take it.”
Looking ahead to Christmas Day, all her kids except Samuel have left home. But most will stay overnight on 24 December. On the big day, all nine children get a Christmas stocking with the same number of gifts they did as kids, and their partners and her six grandkids receive the same.
Then on 27 December, Angela and Phil head to Ōhope for their annual holiday. She laughs and says, “By day four in the caravan, I’m relaxed but already thinking about the shop next year! The whole point of life is to be happy and bring happiness.”
Christmas Magic Makers is located at 134 Jellicoe Street, Te Puke. It’s open full-time from September to December, and for short periods in January and July.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
