A Disney super fan has decorated her Christmas tree with over one HUNDRED Mickey and Minnie Mouse toys
Leanne Tague and her daughters love Disney so much that they cover their Christmas tree with hundreds of Mickey and Minnie Mouse toys every year
TOYS are meant to be found under the tree at Christmas - but it's the other way around at one Disney super fan's house.
Leanne Tague, 34, spends hours covering her tree with her cherished stuffed toys, which she has spent over twelve years collecting.
Amazingly it only takes the beauty therapist, from Wirral in Merseyside, between two and three hours to create her festive masterpiece with a little help from her daughters Indie, seven, and Poppy, eight.
She explained: “I have a certain order. I do the tree and the lights in one night. I put all the teddies on the floor, then we group them, depending on who we want to put together - the Frozen characters together, for example.
"Mickey and Minnie are always right in the middle. I have quite a few of them in different clothes, so I choose the biggest ones for the middle and work around them.
“It’s just a normal fake Christmas tree underneath and I wrap the branches around the teddies, filling any little spaces with baubles.
"Every holiday we go on, we get a different decoration to go on there, too, but it’s always got to be multi-coloured to match the theme.
“The whole tree is really special for us all. It’s full of memories and the kids absolutely love it.”
However, Leanne admits that the tree does divide opinion, with some critics claiming that it doesn't represent the true meaning of the season.
She explained: “I adore Disney and so do my kids. It was just something I thought of over the years and it attracts loads of attention.
“It is a bit like Marmite - people either love it or they hate how untraditional it is.
"I always get some criticism about how much it cost or how it’s not showing the meaning of Christmas.
"For me, though, Christmas is about the children and making it magical for them.
“From the first year I did it in 2007 everyone who sees it has been talking about it and every year, more and more people coming to visit it.”
Growing up, Leanne remembers her own mum Tracey, 53, insisting that everything was carefully colour coded and tasteful on the family Christmas tree - a tradition she wanted to break.
She said: "When I was little, we had a lovely colour coded tree. It had to be done in a certain way and then I wouldn’t be able to touch it.
“But I always said that if I had children, I didn’t want a tree that was done to perfection - it would be one where anything could go on it, a mismatch of everything.
“When I bought my first house, 12 years ago, I only added a few Disney teddies to the tree. I’ve always loved Disney, though, as do my girls, so, over the years, we’ve bought more and more and added them all.
"I’ve completely lost track of how much all the stuff on the tree is worth.
“I started planning a Disney bear-themed tree ten years ago, when I realised our collection was so big there was no room for anything else, really.”
After Christmas, the toys aren't boxed up for the next twelve months, they go back to their usual home of Leanne's children's bedrooms, where they hang from the ceiling and walls using fishing wire.
Leanne said: “We’re all huge fans. We’ve been to Disneyworld in California and we go to Disneyland Paris almost every year.
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"It’s lovely that the three of us share an interest. It just makes Christmas really magical.”
This year a friend entered a picture of her elaborate tree in a Facebook competition - and the mum-of-two was left stunned when she received a complimentary email from Disney bosses.
She said: "My friend entered it into a Christmas tree competition on Facebook and it got thousands of likes.
“After that, I got an email from Disney, saying they had seen the tree and they loved it. They said they would share it with their staff to spread Christmas cheer. I was so proud and my daughters couldn’t believe it.”
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