By Kim Hilsenbeck.
They greet you at the front door and welcome you in the foyer. Some smile down at you from the top of the bookshelves and others grin up at you from the corners of the fireplace hearth.
On the tree, more than 50 of them oversee activities in the living room, while a few more keep watch in the dining room.
Step into the kitchen, and they peek at you with their happy smiles from the window box, the counter top and the fridge. A few more dot the patio and backyard.
Representing every shape, size and style, they welcome visitors during the holidays in the form of stuffed, glass, metal, wooden, wax and plastic. Some are from far-flung places, such as Ireland, while others are handmade right here in the USA.
They’re on the plates and silverware, wine glasses, measuring cups in the kitchen and the towels in the bathroom. There are even a few on the sweater of Jeanette Matthews, the woman who collects them.
What are they? Snowmen, of course.
In all, more than 140 snowmen, and snowwomen, frolic inside and outside the home of Jeanette and Rick Matthews of Buda. More if you count every fork, knife, plate and glass.
Each holiday season, she unpacks each one and places it somewhere in the Leisurewoods home where she’s lived since 1979. The process can take two to three weeks, she said.
Why snowmen?
Jeanette grew up in Kansas and loved the snow.
“[Collecting snowmen] just makes me happy,” she said. “They always have a smile on their faces.”
She couldn’t remember which one kicked off the collection, but she knows it’s been an obess…hobby since the early years of her marriage. She and Rick have been together 43 years.
During that time, Matthews said she just kept finding snowmen she liked and bought them.
“I think Cracker Barrel is her favorite store,” Rick chimed in.
Friends and family also bought them for her.
Over the years, the collection expanded to include ornaments, stuffed snowmen, candles, silverware, clothing, and jewelry. They grace rugs, a flowerpot and candle holders. A few homemade snowmen dot the collection.
Yet a walk through the Matthews’ home is not akin to an obstacle course. Snowman are tastefully placed and each has a spot to call home. Coupled with boughs of greenery and lights, the snowmen are always visible but not distracting.
Her husband, who does a bit of eye rolling at the outset of the interview, ends up leading part of the tour around the house. He points out the snowmen on the walls, in the bathrooms, on rugs – even one up high on a chest of drawers still wrapped in protective plastic.
The both laughed.
“We don’t have them all out yet,” Rick said.
Matthews shares a few stories of the more special members of her collection that are particularly important to her. There are four from the Waterford Crystal company where she and her husband went when they visited Ireland a few years ago.
“These are probably my most special ones,” she said.
Then there is the handmade wicker snowman in the kitchen crafted by a friend from South Carolina. It’s tiny, but it holds a special place in Matthews’ heart.
And while her collection grows, it also occasionally shrinks. Matthews said she sold a few snowmen items, such as a shower curtain and sheets, at a garage sale not long ago.
As Jeanette said, “You get tired of them and run out of room.”
The storage of them alone requires 25 large plastic tubs.
And that doesn’t include the sweatshirts, jackets and pajamas with snowmen on them.
“We got more. I promise we got more,” Rick said.
