A handmade winter wonderland

HASTINGS, Minn. — There are 167 handmade, 8-foot wooden Christmas decorations and 27 miles of extension cords powering Christmas lights covering the dairy farm operated by Sara (Bremer) Hewitt’s family. Their display is viewable throughout December and until the day after New Year’s.

“We transform our farm into a winter wonderland,” Hewitt said. “It’s a three-quarter mile drive through, and … it’s a combination dairy experience and trip down memory lane through Christmas movies.”

Hewitt works at Hastings Public Schools as an education technology coordinator and lives with her husband, Lucas, in one of the three houses at her family’s dairy farm. She also milks cows on evenings and weekends.

“I’ve always been a person who feels accomplished if there’s some sort of physical representation of the work,” Hewitt said. “(With) this (display), I definitely feel like I’ve done some-thing. … Each year it gets bigger and bigger. … I like just the quietness of being outside in the wintertime, so it incorporates being productive and being quiet.”

Hewitt’s parents, John and Janet Bremer, milk 100 cows and farm 260 acres near Hastings. Her grandma, Karen Bremer, also lives on the farm and feeds calves. Hewitt’s brother, Mike Bremer, milks cows in the mornings in addition to operating a local TV station.

The Bremer Farm Lights display turns on a bit before dusk so the cows are not startled and remains on until 10 p.m. The experience is free, but food or monetary donations benefitting the local food shelf are welcome. The monetary donations are used to buy dairy products.

Beyond the regular display, Hewitt and the Bremers also host Santa on the Farm one of the weekends in December. This year’s event is Dec. 21 from 5-7 p.m. If the weather is good, the family expects nearly 1,000 guests.

“Our goal was to entertain people with the holiday decorations, but also to share about our dairy farm,” Janet Bremer said.

The decorations include movie scene vignettes from classics such as “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Hewitt also has a mini herd of cows dressed for Christmas.

“They are all painted to look identical to the favorite cows we’ve had throughout our lives,” Hewitt said.

She also has four gingerbread families.

“The gingerbread people by the gingerbread houses are actually (our) families,” Hewitt said. “If people know us, there are little hints in the decorations on the gingerbread people as to who they are.”

For example, her dad’s gingerbread man is wearing his classic red suspenders, and Hillary, her sister-in-law, has a gingerbread likeness wearing a cross necklace just like Hillary does daily.

Originally, Hewitt started decorating 17 years ago with inflatables, but seven years ago, she began making her own decorations.

“It dawned on me that a lot of the store-made decorations aren’t big enough for little kids to see when they’re in the car without unbuckling and standing up on their seats,” she said. “I, myself, really enjoy painting and woodworking, so I combine those two together.”

Since then, Hewitt has transitioned 100% of their decorations to handmade.

“It’s totally evolved from a mass-produced, inflatable and wireframe piece to now everything is custom, and you will only see it in our display,” Hewitt said.

Hewitt spends June, July and August each year building and painting her pieces. Each decoration takes two and a half weeks to build in her parents’ garage.

One year, Hewitt’s Christmas gift from her parents was an electrician installing outlets in secret places around the farm to power the display. Other years it has been Menards gift cards.

“A couple years ago for Christmas, Mom saw my Christmas list, and she’s like, ‘I just don’t want to buy you plywood,’” Hewitt said.

This year marks the 10th year of hosting Santa on the Farm. Visitors to the event drive through four special stations that are only up that evening.

The first station is Mike the Elf collecting donations for Hastings Family Service. The Christmas elf also passes out gift bags from the farm and a map of the farm with QR codes to videos of what happens inside each building.

“They actually see footage of our calves, and they can see what goes on in the milking parlor,” Hewitt said. “They get a behind the scenes tour, just for driving through.”

The second stop has Princess Kay of the Milky Way stationed near a pen of calves answering questions. The next stop is Santa and Mrs. Claus. Children receive a gift from Santa and dogs get a treat.

The last stop of the night is milk and cookies served by Janet, John and Karen.

“If people have any questions about our farm after going through the whole farm, then it’s people who live here that can answer questions,” Hewitt said. “The nice thing about everybody that works on Santa on the Farm or volunteers at it, (is they have) currently, or at one point in their life did work on a dairy farm.”

With dairy education present, Hewitt and Bremer have used Undeniably Dairy grants to help with costs. One of the grant-funded projects was putting 4- by 4-foot weatherproof signs on each of the farm buildings explaining with words and photos what the building is used for.

“We entice them with the Christmas decorations, but they learn a lot about farming and dairy farming in particular,” Bremer said. “I appreciate that they ask a lot of questions when they are coming through.”

The event also receives corporate donations, none of which have been sought out Bremer said.

“We’ve become a tradition for a lot of families,” Bremer said. “I also find it exciting that people from businesses come to us offering to sponsor our evening or our display. … That is basically a huge compliment to what we’re doing. It tells me that they realize the value of it.”

As the Bremers look to the future, they plan to continue their Christmas magic.

“I look forward to the decorating every year as my Christmas tradition,” Hewitt said.

Bremer agreed.

“It’s exciting for me to just see how successful it’s become, because I know how hard Sara works at it,” she said. “Also, because I like to be a dairy advocate year-round, … I find it really exciting that we could come up with something that’s creative and different, that we can still share our dairy story.”