It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in one North Carolina neighborhood.
No, it’s not a matter of holiday creep. The town’s residents simply want to help a dying woman celebrate one last time.
“There’s a good chance, unless the Lord changes his mind, that I won’t make it through Christmas and I love Christmas,” Michelle Fadel of Concord told ABC News. “I love that everyone is cheery, everyone’s together, everything’s lit up, everything’s pretty and you rarely see grumpy people during Christmas.”
The 56-year-old is battling terminal cancer, which has spread to her brain, bones and lungs. When Fadel told her family she would love to enjoy one more Christmas, they broke out the decorations and decked the halls.
After the neighbors found out, they joined in.
“It may look a little strange this close to Halloween but we hope it makes her happy and we hope she knows we’re thinking about her,” neighbor Tim Hawkins told local CBS station WBTV.
Fadel knows.
“I’m overwhelmed,” she told WCNC, the local NBC station. “I’m just overwhelmed by their generosity to do this, their expression of love to us since we’ve been here such a short time.”
About a dozen homes around Fadel’s were decked out in Christmas splendor, ABC News reported. One neighbor who never decorates for Christmas even put a wreath on his mailbox.
“I hope that my family remembers that they are not alone,” Fadel told WCNC. “I may not be here, but they’re not alone and there’s a lot of love if they’ll let it in.”
