Long Island couple wants to Make Christmas Great Again with this giant 42-foot, $3K inflatable lawn Santa
It’s holiday inflation everyone can get behind.A pair of Long Island homeowners are going big for Christmas — installing a 42-foot inflatable Santa Claus that’s attracted hundreds of onlookers.Farmingdale dance studio owner Jacklyn Proscia, 35, said the idea came after her neighbor to the right, nurse Christina Stergiopoulos, 36, said she wanted to “make Christmas great again.”“My husband said it to me first; we’ve got to make Christmas great again,” said Stergiopoulos, a supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, adding she’s noted a decline in holiday cheer in their neighborhood over the last few years, including in how homes are decorated.Stergiopoulos’ husband, George, found the towering 135-pound Kris Kringle online at a sketchy website for $3,000.And next-door neighbor Proscia — who said she was in it for the holiday cheer, not politics — happily agreed to display it on their shared front lawn and contribute to the cost.“We’re always on board with these crazy fun ideas,” Proscia, who does a joint Halloween display with the Stergiopoulos family, told The Post on Monday.
When their husbands first took the massive Saint Nick out of his box, he appeared as a gigantic, colorful pancake flat on the grass.Upright, the oversized decoration — with a huge, green toy sack — is bigger than both of their homes.
It only takes about 10 to 15 minutes for it to reach full size, but it needs continuous air to stay inflated.“When we put it up on the front lawn, it definitely looked larger than life,” Proscia told The Post.“In the back of my mind, 42-feet didn’t look like this in my brain.”The families appear to have succeeded in boosting holiday cheer across Nassau County since putting up the larger-than-life Father Christmas last Monday, with visitors dropping by for a look as late as 10 p.m., they said.The two husbands even set up a series of lights so that the holly jolly man would be more visible after sundown, which turned int...