Noreen Maguire’s hand made family snowmen decoration

A DONEGAL mother has become an online sensation with her home made Christmas family snowmen decoration.
Noreen Maguire placed a pint glass over one of her knitted snowmen on Christmas Day to show that her daughter was isolating. She then added a photograph to the family WhatsApp group for her husband Rory and two daughters, Mairead and Rosin, to see.
Within minutes, Mairead had uploaded the image on Twitter which has since gone viral online.
Earlier this week, the tweet had more than 436,000 likes while Noreen has also secured orders for her little snowmen families from all over the world.
“Mairead was isolating and had her Christmas dinner in the living room while we were in the kitchen. As I was clearing up after dinner I stuck a pint glass over Mairead in our little family of snowmen that were sitting in the window for the craic. I took a photo and put it into the family WhatsApp group and we all had a good laugh. An hour later I found out that Mairead had put it on twitter and it escalated from there.
“I think the pint glass made her snowman face look sad and it resonated with a lot of people who found themselves in a similar situation this Christmas,” she explained.
Irish mothers are known for their knitting skills and Noreen is thankful to her own mother Brid Byrne from Crove for teaching her.
“That was probably fifty years ago now and mum still knits today,” she said.
Two years ago, Noreen organised knitting classes for children in Ardara but they had to be cancelled following the onset of Covid.
“I’m passionate about knitting and decided to knit our snowmen family at that time. A picture of the finished family has been put on Facebook a few times and people seem to love it,” she said.
The net result is Noreen’s Knits – 100% handmade and customisable snowmen families that will last year after year – with orders flooding in from all over the world.
“I’ve spent the past two days trying to find out now much postage costs to these different countries and also how to go about getting payment,” she said.
“It takes about 20 hours to knit a family of four. The Christmas tree and base and are also hand knit while I also add scarves and hats. I decorate each tree with buttons – which are hand sewn – so it takes time,” she said.
Noreen works full-time as a school secretary in Donegal Town and is currently studying for a Level 8 honours Business degree from LYIT.
“Knitting is a lovely past-time but I’ll probably be kept busy during the school summer holidays in July and August knitting snowmen,” she laughed.
“It takes a lot of patience and attention to detail but I can’t wait to get started on my new little snowmen families,” she added.