Stittsville's Turcotte family spreading Christmas cheer for all to hear with Elf-theme display

Son of a Nutcracker! The Turcottes have done it again.

This year, the Stittsville family have turned their home at 18 Cypress Gardens into an homage to the candy, candy cane, candy corn and syrup-loving Buddy the Elf.

“We’ve had so much fun over the last two years that we decided to ask the public what they wanted us to do this year,” said Shawn Turcotte.

“I was really rooting for Die Hard. But no, the people spoke and Elf was the frontrunner. So we rolled up our sleeves and put together a plan.”

In past years, the movie-loving family — parents Shawn and Chantelle and kids Hudson and Kennedy — have built displays of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Home Alone. Elf, the 2003 Christmas classic starring Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf on a quest to find his father in New York City, presented new challenges.

“We wanted to go even bigger this year,” Turcotte said. “We’ve had such a great response the last couple of years we wanted to see if we could push it even further.”

The two centrepiece attractions are a New York City Yellow Cab like the one that nearly mows Buddy down and, of course, Santa’s sleigh, complete with its persnickety Kringle 3000 jet engine. The cab is a 1996 Ford Crown Vic that Turcotte found in Toronto and had repainted by the company where he works, Cavanagh Construction. The sleigh proved harder to source, so Turcotte decided to build one himself using lumber donated for the project.

New neighbours who recently moved to Cypress Garden (hope they like listening to the Elf soundtrack!) graciously allowed the display to spread to their lawn with a mock Empire State Building, a cut out of an ominous “Central Park Ranger” and a bridge, scene of Elf’s epic snowball battle with school bullies.

There’s a dinner table set up with a meal of all Elf’s favourite food groups (if you know, you know), a massive “Gimble’s” department store sign and a stunning New York City skyline made of 22,000 Lego bricks.

Turcotte enlisted help from Ottawa’s ParLUGment adult Lego fans club for that.

“I was in awe,” he said. “It looks even better than the one in the movie.”

In 2020, the Christmas Vacation setup raised nearly $50,000 for the Stittsville Food Bank, and the 2021 Home Alone display brought in nearly $70,000 for youth mental health services at CHEO. CHEO will be the recipient of this year’s fundraising efforts too, Turcotte said.

“There is such a crisis, they’re just overwhelmed with patients,” he said. “You feel awful for the kids who are stuck there. As a community, we need to do whatever we can to support them. We contacted the CHEO foundation and said to use the money to wherever they think it would be best.”

The display officially launches with a noon hour ceremony on Thursday Dec. 1 with officials from CHEO and Stittsville city councillor Glen Gower. The display will run though the Christmas season, with Turcotte himself appearing in his Poppa Elf costume.

“Come and enjoy yourself,” he said. “Look at the display. And if you can make a contribution to CHEO, please feel free to do so.”