So many people have accepted the fun new challenge to show off the man in the red suit at Isisford this Christmas that Townsville is running short of Santa suits.
Devised by Dale and Chris Bignell to bring a little festive cheer to the central western Queensland community, they sold out of the 15 suits originally purchased for entrants and had to urgently search far and wide for another 20.
As you drive into town you find Santa in all sorts of interesting locations - desperately clinging to the big yellowbelly at the western entrance, falling off a roof, riding a motorbike and with his head in the recycling bin are among the many creative positions thought up.
"They all reflect the personalities of the people who made them," Mr Bignell said. "We really didn't expect this response."
It's an idea they got from Ms Bignell's home town of Lilydale in Tasmania that migrated with the pair when they decided to buy a block of land in Isisford and resettle in western Queensland.
Mr Bignell is Isisford born and bred but made his way to Tasmania through the shearing industry, eventually taking a job with Comalco in the southern state, where he worked for 32 years.
It was there that he met and married Chris and when he retired, Isisford was one of the towns on their list of places to visit, enticing them to put down permanent roots again.
These days Ms Bignell works for the Longreach Regional Council as a tourism officer while Mr Bignell operates the community's recycling program.
The program has raised over $10,000 in less than a year and it's this money that is backing the Santa challenge, open to anyone living within a 25km radius of town.
It was to be a Longreach Regional councillor who had the unenviable task of judging.
