Neighbour row forces dad-to-be to take down 'cheap and tacky' Christmas decorations after anonymous letter from 'unhappy' local

In the fury-filled letter, the neighbour told Mr Goodings and his pregnant partner that the decorations were an "eyesore" that "ruined the character of the road".

The letter read: "The inflatables are an eyesore. They ruin the character of the road and they make the whole area look ridiculous, rather than the nice tidy street it usually is.

"It shows zero respect for the community, please take them down immediately. If they are not removed at once I will be reporting the matter to the council and the residents association."

Telling GB News about the incident, Mr Goodings explained: "I'm feeling very deflated, because we decided to put up our Christmas decorations, we've got two giant Christmas inflatables, one being a giant snowman and the other a Father Christmas.

"And the reason behind this is yes, we did make a mistake last year and they sent us the wrong order and we decided to keep the Father Christmas, and we've gone full out this year once again, but we are expecting a baby in the first few months of next year, so it's a very special Christmas and a special time of year for us, so we wanted to go full out.

"And just from the success of last year with the Father Christmas when we did the giant inflatable, it brings so much happiness and smiles to people, but this year it's a little bit different."

Recalling his reaction to receiving the letter just 24 hours after inflating the decorations, he said: "We put them up on the Sunday, and then I got home from work on Monday to an envelope that had been posted through the door. There was no writing on the envelope, which I thought was a little bit weird.

"I opened it up and lo and behold, in the envelope was this long letter, all in capital letters. I couldn't believe it, what I was reading."

Mr Goodings added: "At first my heart sank, because I'm not that kind of person at all, I hate upsetting anyone, I hate any confrontation and stuff like that. But for me, I was reading it and I was like, 'oh, have I upset someone?'

"But then after reading it a couple of times, it's so silly. It's the time of year where you can let your hair down, have a little bit fun at Christmas, and it's just one person who's upset. Whereas there's hundreds of people that have passed on the street, even go out of their way to visit our Christmas decorations and they love it. You should see the smiles on people's faces when they see it."

Asked by host Dawn Neesom what they have done with the decorations, Mr Goodings admitted that they sadly took the inflatables down.

He told GB News: "We have actually taken them down as of last night, just to sort of decide what to do and what's our next move. But it's just sort of snowballed since I posted it online.

"I was debating whether I should I upload a photo of the picture on Instagram and TikTok, and I thought, you know what? It is quite funny, we've got to laugh about these things, otherwise you'd just be sad about it."

Asked by host Tom Harwood if he has any plans to celebrate Christmas with the neighbours, the dad-to-be revealed: "There's a few ideas of how we could handle the situation. Some people have been saying online that I should go full out and maybe even add more inflatables to our decorations, others say take it in, it is cheap and tacky.

"Another person or a company that we might have upset is Chessington World of Adventures - they're just around the corner from us, and we've kind of joked that maybe we're stealing trade from them because we've become the new tourist attraction in town."

He added: "I don't know if we left it too late this year, but if we do decide to bring them back next year, maybe we could add lights or even do like a Christmas lights switch on event like you'd get in town.

"Maybe we could have a DJ or a host and turn it into an event where it brings the community together.

"And that's what I've tried to achieve with this, is just to see the smile on people's faces."