This Lady Has 277 Christmas Trees in Her Damn House

Some of us decorate for the holidays by Scotch-taping a couple strings of multicolored Christmas lights to the rafters and calling it a day because that eggnog isn’t going to drink itself. Not Renetta Zanco of Lothian, Maryland, who is truly, deeply dedicated.

Every year, she unpacks and decorates her enormous collection of Christmas trees. It takes days, Fox 5 News reports, because she’s got 277 of them. 277!

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that this tannenbaum orgy has its origins in—what else?—sibling rivalry. It started as an arms race between Ms. Zanco and her sister:

“Each year, she would call me up and say, ‘How many trees did you put up?’ And then, of course, I would have to outdo her,” explains Zanco. “So I would call her back and say I’ve got two more then you did. Then she would call me back the next year [and say], ‘Well, I’ve got five more’ and it started out like that.”

Ms. Zanco won.

Now, not all her trees are full-sized and fresh from the forest. For instance, there are 28 in her bathroom, but most of them are tchotchke-sized. (One is made of toilet-paper rolls.) Nevertheless, her house still looks like a woodland forest that’s been vandalized by feral elves escaped from the North Pole.