Trimming Gone Viral: Christmas Tree Bursts Through Roof

An Upstate NY family dazzles TikTok fans with illusionary yuletide cheer

The illusion of a Christmas Tree busting through the roof of a home has gone viral. — Video shows the creativity of a homeowner in New York State who designed a Christmas Tree that gives the illusion of being so big that it literally busts through the solarium of the house.
Image and video courtesy of TikTok.

One family in New York State has captured the holiday zeitgeist in a TikTok video posted on Dec. 13; the video shows what appears to be an indoor Christmas tree so large it busts through the top of their home.

“So, the illusion, guys, is that the tree just busted through the roof,” a man — whose voice caused as much speculation about his identity as the video itself — can be heard saying over the video: “I think we really accomplished it; it looks amazing,” he says.

The video, posted by the account h2omarchica1, belongs to a woman named Wendy Waters-Marchic who, apart from being a prolific TikTok poster, was a cast member on Season 1 of the TLC show “You, Me & My Ex,” which aired in 2021.

The home, which was never specifically identified as Waters-Marchic’s, is located in Fairfield, N.Y., about halfway between Syracuse and Albany, off Route 23, for readers in the area. (Which, according to U.S. Census data, are few; Fairfield has a population of roughly 1,100 people.)

Commentators agreed the holiday display was top-notch: “Literally the absolute coolest Christmas decoration I have ever laid my eyes on,” one user, “fdjt,” wrote. An account named “Dyana” posted “This is INCREDIBLE and needs to be viral. Now.”

Waters-Marchic appeared in “You, Me & My Ex,” a TLC reality show that dives into the lives of couples navigating relationships where ex-partners remain unusually close. In Season 1, Waters-Marchic brought tension to the show, navigating life with her current partner while maintaining a close relationship with her ex-spouse.

Clever stuff.

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Bryan Gottlieb is the online editor at Engineering News-Record (ENR).

Gottlieb is a five-time Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism award winner with more than a decade of experience covering business, construction, and community issues. He has worked at Adweek, managed a community newsroom in Santa Monica, Calif., and reported on finance, law, and real estate for the San Diego Daily Transcript. He later served as editor-in-chief of the Detroit Metro Times and was managing editor at Roofing Contractor, where he helped shape national industry coverage.

Gottlieb covers breaking news, large-scale infrastructure projects, new products and business.