When he was three years old, Matthias Maynard sat on the floor in front of the family's blue sofa and watched his dad test a string of Christmas lights. As they flickered to life, Maynard was mesmerized.
"I just couldn't get enough of those lights," Maynard said. "That was it for me."
That first memory of Christmas has turned into a lifelong love of the holiday. Maynard, now 39, celebrates by fitting no fewer than 28 Christmas trees into his mid-century ranch-style home in south Denver.
At least 60 nutcrackers are spread across the house, not counting the Christmas tree decorated exclusively with nutcrackers. Bright white string lights that carry red, green and golden bulb ornaments stretch from wall-to-wall overhead in the cozy living room where a fireplace was crackling on a recent afternoon.
"This is what I do every year," he said. "This is how I celebrate Christmas."
He often gets help from his 18-year-old daughter Justyce Makolondra, with whom he shares a Christian faith. Maynard says those two things, his daughter and his belief in God, are the reason he's still alive to celebrate every year.
He figures he had his first taste of alcohol when he was just 10 years old. By the time he was reaching adulthood, he says, he was drinking "twenty-four, seven."
"Obviously," he said, surrounded by Christmas decorations, "if I like something, I do it a lot."
Maynard loved to party. He'd bounce from bar to bar, often chasing women. The since-closed Retreat dive bar near South Colorado Boulevard was a favorite spot.
Many nights, he'd stumble home and wake up the next morning without remembering how he'd gotten back.
On other nights, he wouldn't wake up at home at all. Once, he said, he awoke in a strange house and was arrested by police. Another time he was picked up walking down a highway.
"I could have woken up in the ditch somewhere -- or not woken up in the ditch somewhere and ended up dead on the side of the road," he said.
The alcohol was taking a toll on his body, too. Maynard would wake up in withdrawal, shaking and sweating, and have to gulp vodka to fall back asleep. He couldn't make it through work without sipping through a pint of liquor.
"Doctors told me if I kept drinking, I was going to die," he said.
Maynard didn't want to die. He had a child to raise.
Maynard was 20 when his daughter was born. That made him take stock of his life -- a tiny apartment, no car, and little self-esteem. He tried to quit cold turkey and ended up in the hospital several times in withdrawal. AA didn't work for him either.
So Maynard kept drinking, but also leaned harder into his Baptist faith. He'd always considered himself a Christian. But in the depths of his addiction, he said he always fought to keep control over his own choices. Finally, he said, he gave that up. He gave control to God.
"That's what worked," Maynard said. "When I just decided I just have to do this, me and God, and focus on my daughter. That's what got me through, was my faith."
That process took years. Maynard said he got sober 13 years ago, five years after Makolondra was born.
"He shaped it up real good," said Matthias' father Benny Maynard. "Everything straightened up and started going good."
For Makolondra, though, her father has always been a great dad. He'd put up a Christmas tree every year in their studio apartment on Colfax Avenue -- plus one or two more in the lobby. He never drank in front of her, she said. She didn't even know about his struggle until she was older.
"He was always just trying to be the best dad he could be with the little amount that we had," she said.
With liquor behind him, Maynard had a lot more time and energy.
He got into painting and drawing. He plays music. He built himself a little woodshop out back. He works now as a tree trimmer.
And, of course, sobriety got him back into Christmas.
Maynard had been collecting trees, garland, and other decorations back in his apartment days. He just didn't have any place to put them. Then in 2010, as he was finally kicking booze, he moved into the ranch house in south Denver.
"Ever since I was a little kid, I said, 'When I get my own house, I'm going to have as many trees as I can,'" Maynard said. "This was always the plan, but I just wasn't on the right path to make this happen. And then I had more money. All of a sudden I had a bigger place to stay, had more time and more focus."
Now, that focus kicks into gear when he hauls the first decorations out of storage sometime in October every year. This year, it took about six weeks to give the house a full makeover. His electricity bill nearly doubles by the time everything is turned on.
"Everyone always called him the glue of the family because he made sure everybody was there," Makolondra said. "I think that's what Christmas really means to him."
Maynard says he enjoys the weeks leading up to Christmas as much as the day itself. He likes to put on holiday music and putter around the house tweaking his masterpiece. All the while, he says, he thinks about the happy Christmases of his youth and the ones he enjoys now.
He's blessed, he said, with far more than he deserves.
But Christmas Day itself can be almost melancholy, Maynard said, because it means the season has peaked. As the new year starts, Maynard said he clings to the Christmas season even as the weeks and months tick by. Last time around, the decorations stayed up until March.
"I just don't want it to be over," he said.
