Humble Mountain and Kind Town

GRANTS, N.M. — What started as a five-dollar purchase at a garage sale 29 years ago eventually grew into a large-scale tradition that would be revealed to the public in a new way on Monday, November 29. At Grants Public Library, students from Mesa View Elementary School, St. Theresa of Avila School, and other community members gathered together at 1 p.m. on Monday to take the first look at local Larry Marsing’s sizable Christmas display.

Marsing was born and raised in the Grants/Milan area, but eventually moved to Rio Rancho, where he lived for almost 30 years. However, when his wife passed away about four years ago, Marsing decided to move back to the Cibola County area. About 29 years ago, Marsing and his wife started a tradition that started with the purchasing of some small Christmas town buildings at a garage sale. Over the next 29 years, Marsing and his wife began growing their collection of small Christmas village decorations for Marsing to put a Christmas display together with. Marsing said he was inspired by a Christmas display he used to admire in the Village of Milan. Marsing’s display eventually grew to the size of his living room, forcing him to move it out onto the patio area in the coming years.

Marsing invited community members to come see the display, and often times, many would end up being reminded of their own Christmas decorations that they never used, and they would donate the items to Marsing. “It just grew and grew and grew,” Marsing reflected. Eventually, with the encouragement of his brother, David Marsing, security guard for GHS, Larry Marsing decided that he wanted to seek out a bigger place to build his display in the public so that more people could see it. He reached out to Library Director Nadine Jiron, who didn’t hesitate to tell Marsing he could build his display at the library.

“My big goal for the library is to turn this into a community place,” said Jiron when asked what it meant to the library to be able to support Marsing and his en deavor. “That’s what a library should be. It should be the hub, and anything that we can do to support the community, you know, I’m looking for those types of things. So, it means a lot because I know that it’s something that he’s very proud of and he’s worked really hard on. And I’m just glad that we’re able to provide a place for him to actually put it out there for the community to enjoy.”

After three weeks and over 200 hours of labor, Jiron and Marsing revealed the display to a room full of students. The children counted down from five, and a tarp was dropped, revealing a display stretching from one wall to another in the library’s front lobby. The display is estimated to be about 150 square feet. According to Marsing and his family, no one truly expected the display to be as large as it came out. The school children certainly were not disappointed, letting out “oohs” and “aahs” as they all made their way around the perimeter of the display. The perimeter was created using fencing from Marsing’s fencing company, GOM Fence, which according to Marsing stands for “Grumpy Old Men,” he said with a laugh. The number for GOM fence is 505-227-3664, as listed on the display fence.

Many kids approached Marsing after the reveal to ask questions and let him know how “amazing,” “crazy,” and “beautiful” the display was. Marsing was beaming with joy at the opportunity to share his passion with the kids.

“It was so much better to do it here and have people see it. I’m so happy. I’m so happy that everybody loves it, and it came out spectacular… I hope that everybody comes to see it,” said Marsing, who also said that only about 30 to 40 people would get to see the smaller display before, when it was at his home.

“And now everybody’s gonna get to see it and I’m so happy,” said Marsing, who also spoke about finally seeing the display complete and the reason he did it. “My heart is just full of love. The community’s gonna love it, but really, I don’t do it for the community. I do it for the kids because the kids, you see the smiles on their faces today? A lot of them came up and told me, ‘Wow this is amazing, it’s beautiful,’ and that’s what I do it for. I do it for the kids.”

Marsing has six grandchildren himself and has made it a point to share this tradition and passion with them as well. Beside the main Christmas display is a small display of nothing but M&M collector’s items. According to Marsing, the M&M display is only about a tenth of his total collection, with includes 780 pieces. After Marsing’s wife passed, many inquired about the M&M collection and what he was going to do with it, seeing as though the collection primarily belonged to his late wife. Marsing decided that each year, for birthdays and Christmases, that he would give each of his six grandchildren an M&M item as a gift from their late grandmother.

When talking about what he thought his late wife would think about the display, Marsing added, “She’s loving it. She is right there beaming, beaming, beaming. She is so happy, and because that’s hers. The M&M stuff was hers. I bought it, it was her collection, and when she passed, I agreed to give it to the kids, but all the M&M stuff is hers and she is beaming, beaming, beaming. And it’s never been displayed. It’s never been done with the M&M stuff. We’ve never displayed it.”

Marsing was grateful to Jiron and the library for the opportunity to share his display with the public, and he hopes the community comes out to see it. Finally, Marsing gave a shoutout to his mother, who couldn’t make it to the reveal, saying, “Nancy, your son really loves you.”