John McEvoy with his three-tiered Christmas display
Christmas Window Display
A Clondalkin resident has created another Christmas window display to mark the holiday season, adding to a long line of creations spanning decades.
Clondalkin Village local John McEvoy has created a three-tiered Christmas display, showcasing ski slopes with moving ski lifts and figures descending a snowy mountainside.
John starts working on his creations each year around October in the workshop in his home and his niece Nicola Johnston has fond memories of them from when she was a child but thinks this is her uncle’s best work yet.
Nicola said: “The ski slope actually works! It has like a conveyor belt, you know when you’re going on the ski slope and you sit on the carriages? It actually has that!…
“…The work he put in this year was just phenomenal, like he carved out the Styrofoam to make it look like a ski slope.
“The chairlift is rotating above, and you see the people in it and then you see the people coming down the slopes and it’s just unbelievable.”
Over the years, the 69-year-old has been collecting pieces from Johnstown Garden Centre in Naas to use for his displays and create his window Winter Wonderlands.
The Winter Wonderlands created by the local come in the form of box displays and neighbours and passers-by have come to anticipate them over the years.
Nicola said that her uncle’s creativity in making these displays for everyone to enjoy, as well as his passion in doing so is heartwarming.
She remembers heading over to her uncle’s years ago to see the creations with the wonder never lost on the eyes of a child.
“We would have spent a lot of time there. My aunt and uncle are my godparents – they didn’t have their own kids so they kind of involved all of us and we’d have Christmas nights up there.”
McEvoy has also created a “real-life funfair” fit with a ferris wheel and other working rides.
The displays have given Nicola and her family a special set of holiday season memories over the years to cherish. Those memories continue to be made, with Nicola’s children now able to take in the magic that John creates each Christmas.
“My kids now, like I’d bring them up and they’d get to turn on the light. He’s just magical, he’s just amazing.”
