CHRISTINE Pollock is the first person to admit she is just a big kid at heart.

Her own children may be grown-up, but that hasn't stopped her decorating her house in Osborne Street, Gorse Hill, from top to bottom with flashing fairy lights and icicle lights enough to give a glow to the whole street.

"I absolutely love Christmas and I love fairy lights, so at this time of the year I go mad," said Christine. "My husband Gus just lets me get on with it, he doesn't say much, but he doesn't really mind."

Christine has always had a few lights up at Christmas, but this year she decided to go crazy when her mum, Jean Hood, was diagnosed with cancer. "I put them up in the first week of November, so mum could see them before she went to the hospice. People around here must think I am mad, and the mums are probably cursing me, but my mum loved them."

Now Christine's neighbours in Osborne Street have followed suit, and hers is just one of five houses in a row lit up this year. "Gradually, all the lights have started to go up. I don't know if it is because of mum, but it is lovely to see anyway," said Christine.

"It puts a smile on a lot of faces."

FOR many years, Valerie Hearn and her partner Ray Millin simply decorated their home for fun.

It was enough to see the smiles on the faces of the children passing by their bungalow in Derwent Drive, Upper Stratton, to make them get out there stringing up their hundreds of lights year after year.

Then, three years ago, one enthralled visitor offered to give them some money for their efforts if they nominated a charity for it to go to. Since then, they have been raising money for various good causes and the decoration has just grown and grown.

This year, as usual, the couple have set up Santa's Ice Grotto in their car port, which is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 5pm to 7pm. They also have a full nativity scene set up in the front garden with 4ft models, Santa and his reindeers on the garage, angels on the gable end of the bungalow, and the Three Wise Men and their camels lit up in one of the windows.

All this is on top of the hundreds of twinkling fairy lights and icicle lights that circle their home and gardens, put up over five weekends by their two sons-in-law.

"It's really popular with all the children around here, and all year they ask us whether we will be doing it again," said Val, 67. "We raise money for charity, but all the donations are voluntary. There is no charge to see what we do, people just give if they want to."

This year, the couple are raising money for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance Appeal and the Bristol Royal Infirmary children's hospital.

"For me, the pleasure is in seeing the faces of the youngsters and the not so young," said Val. "We get people coming who came to see us as children, and now they are bringing their own children."