Photo: Patrick Squiers

By Abby Zieverink

Local community steps up

Grande Prairie community rallies to replace vandalized Christmas inflatables

Dec 30, 2021 | 2:37 PM

The Grande Prairie community has once again rallied together, this time, to support a local family whose inflatable Christmas decorations were vandalized on Christmas Eve.

Every year, the Squires family decorates the outside of their home with several holiday-themed inflatables, and over the years, it has become a top spot for families to drive by and take pictures at.

However, on the morning of Christmas Eve, Patrick Squires says he woke up to messages from his neighbour saying “Santa was down,” which is the largest holiday inflatable outside his home.

“(I) went out and I found the whole side of him was all cut open. I came back in, (and) checked my cameras,” he explained. “Someone came and sliced him open, and then after he sliced open Santa, he stabbed a bunch of the other inflatables.”

Squires says among the holiday inflatables were Santa, Buddy the Elf, Uncle Eddie from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, and others.

“Two of them were completely ruined. And then he poked holes in probably four or five other ones.”

Once all of this happened, Squires says they notified community members about the vandalism on a social media post on Facebook and Reddit.

“We usually post to the Grande Prairie page when we put it up, just to let everybody know that the display is up and that their kids are welcome to come and go up onto the lawn, and do whatever they want, get their pictures taken,” he said.

“So we just wanted to post it up and let people know what had happened and why it was down because people would wonder how come I took it down.”

From there, Squires says the Grande Prairie community responded instantly.

“It just blew up on Facebook right away, and within no time I had people come to the door, knocking on the door, coming to hand me cash, just wanting to do something to help so we could get it fixed,” he explained.

“That morning, I think my wife said she probably had three or four different people just asking, ‘can we start a GoFundMe page?’ She mentioned it to me, but I was like, ‘no, like, I didn’t want to.'”

However, Matt Pepper, who is Squires daughter’s principal also reached out to start a GoFundMe Page.

“So we kind of figured out with Matt the cost of damages and he put up the GoFundMe page. (It) was probably four or five hours (before) Grande Prairie had (the GoFundMe) full, like, instantly,” added Squires.

Squires tells EverythingGP the GoFundMe ended up raising $2,035, and after it closed, residents still reached out to him on social media wanting to donate more for the Christmas decorations.

“I was pretty angry that morning, and yeah, it turned it around,” he said.

“It was a different Christmas, but it was an awesome Christmas like something bad happened, but something good came out of it and it just shows Grande Prairie’s willingness to help people out.”

Squires says the new inflatable Santa has been ordered and will be back up next year during the holiday season.

He adds he is grateful for the Grande Prairie community.

“It seems like every time anyone’s in trouble, no one hesitates to jump in, and for some reason, Grande Prairie keeps getting a bad reputation from everywhere else, but the people that live in Grande Prairie actually know what Grande Prairie is all about,” he expressed.

“We choose to live here and choose to raise our daughter here, and you know, Grande Prairie is just showing her that they got her back if something bad happens.”

Photo: Patrick Squiers