Alison Ingebrigtsen-Siewert of the West Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles has 102 Christmas trees.
She's been prepping them since before Thanksgiving, reports Mariecar Mendoza of the Los Angeles Daily News.
Ingebrigtsen-Siewert told Mendoza that the habit began with the birth of her daughter, Kristin, in 1999. Before then, the family had just one tree. Now all five family members have a tree apiece, as do the household's two cats and two dogs.
We feel obliged to point out that that explanation leaves a lot of Ingebrigtsen-Siewert's Christmas trees unaccounted for.
Her sister, Kristin Bradley, told Mendoza that "it looks like Christmas threw up in her house." And even Ingebrigtsen-Siewert describes herself as a "nut case" and says she gets "so sad" when it's time to take the decorations down.
Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist and professor at California State University Los Angeles, appears to agree with that self-diagnosis.
"What you have to look at is: 'Does it jump the line between natural behavior or disorder?'" she told Mendoza. "If people don't put decorations up, do they have discomfort? Are they anxious? Are these things encroaching on people? Are they spending money that the family needs?"
The National Retail Federation estimates that Americans spend $6.9 billion a year on Christmas decorations.
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