Christmas-mad family plough $20million into Yuletide festiva

While families across Sydney have been saving up for a mortgage, one family has poured everything they have into the city’s biggest Christmas celebration.

The Evans family loves Christmas so much they have spent around $20 million annually transforming Rosehill Racecourse into Santa’s wonderland.

John and Jade Evans have spent millions of dollars on restoring double decker carousel, state of the art toboggans and $300,000 on Christmas lights.

They even imported an ice rink from Italy and flew a team of Italians out so they could set it up. 

The Santa Spectacular will also be donating up to 5,000 gifts left under the 15 metre charity tree (pictured) to the Westmead and Randwick children’s hospital

The couple have long been obsessed with Christmas, visiting notorious overseas festivals in London and Miami to draw inspiration.

‘We live and breathe Christmas year-round, so it’s exciting to see other people embracing our event and getting into the Christmas spirit,’ Mrs Evans said. 

The celebrations galvanised the couple into putting everything on the line and taking a chance on creating the biggest Christmas festival Australia has seen. 

‘Even in the years prior to founding the Sydney Santa Spectacular, my husband Josh and I were obsessed with Christmas. We have six young kids, so we know how expensive it can be to take a big family to a special event.’

Christmas spirit is alive in the Evans family 365 days a year as they work hard on hand-making thousands of wreaths and hundreds of sets for the celebration.

This is the fourth year the festive family have run the event and their $20million investment includes painstakingly restoring the country’s only double decker carousel by hand. 

The Evans’ have also imported Australia’s biggest portable ice rink and toboggans from Italy. 

Their $20million investment includes painstakingly restoring the country’s only double decker carousel by hand (pictured)

As temperatures continue to rise, Sydneysiders will be able to head to the city’s west to get  a taste of European winter on the rink during summer’s scorching heat. 

This year alone, they’ve spent $300,000 more than last year on decorations and illuminated trees.  

Mr and Mrs Evans have six children, Austin, 13, Ava, 12, twins Faith and Willow, six, and Sparrow, one, and new baby River born in November who all have a hand in the event.

Doing it all themselves without any corporate sponsorship, the operation is entirely family run by founders Josh and Jade Evans

This year, Faith will be running a lemonade stall at the event, and the other children make up the research team, always suggesting new activities to their parents.

The children work a few hours each day in stalls with their parents, grandparents and other staff to earn pocket money.

Not only do the Evans hold an event for thousands of Sydneysiders to enjoy, they will also be spreading the Christmas cheer by donating thousands of gifts to drought-affected families in country Narromine.

The Santa Spectacular will be donating up to 5,000 gifts left under the 15 metre charity tree to the Westmead and Randwick children’s hospital for Christmas. 

‘Last year was our biggest year of gift giving – we gave out close to 5,000 gifts from that one year alone. And we’d like to see that grow even more this year,’ Mrs Evans said.

‘Being able to play Mr & Mrs Claus loading up the Team Santa van and delivering the gifts to the sick kids is the highlight of the event for our team and family.’