What is Santa's favorite drink - besides milk? Well, some might say it's Coca-Cola after seeing all of the holiday Coca-Cola decorations that are available, including many of which where Santa is drinking or holding a bottle of the soda.
Robin Cillo, of South Williamsport, may love Coca-Cola even more than Santa. She has been collecting Coca-Cola items for about 45 years and has turned her home into somewhat of a museum of sorts - dedicated to the soda.
"It's just all over the house," Cillo said. "The bathroom, the garage, the bedroom - wherever I can find a place to put something. It's obscene (laughs)."
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Karen Vibert-Kennedy/Sun-Gazette Correspondent
Robin Cillo sits in next to her Coca-Cola-themed Christmas tree in her home in South Williamsport. Cillo has been collecting Coca-Cola items for more than 40 years.
She said she always drank Coke and she picked up a keychain in the shape of a six-pack of Coke when she was 9 or 10, and her collection just grew from there.
Some of the holiday Coca-Cola decor she has had on display this season include ceramic houses, a big blow-up polar bear, a 6-foot tall cardboard Santa, a Santa figurine, five or six Christmas stockings, a Santa that dances, and an entire Christmas tree filled with Coca-Cola ornaments, lights, tree skirt and topper.
She said she first started putting up the 6 1/2-foot artificial Christmas tree about 15 years ago.
"My first tree - when I first started doing it - I bought lights, they are bottles and machines," Cillo said. "I didn't have very many ornaments, so I decorated it with keychains and stuffed animals."
Today, Cillo guesses she has about 300 ornaments on her tree.
She said she enjoys unwrapping all of her Christmas Coke decorations each year and putting them out on display for herself, family and friends to enjoy.
"People come over and can't get over how many ornaments there are and how full it is and how everything lights up," she said.
Cillo's collection doesn't stop at Christmas. She also has jewelry, glassware, burner covers, a paper towel holder, switch plates for her lights and her Gram even made clothes - bibs and hats - for her baby. Cillo said she gets most of her collection as presents for Christmas and her birthday. She has had relatives who have gone out of the country and brought back Coke cans with other languages printed on them.
"I have Coca-Cola stock," she said. "I bought one share so I can put it in my collection. My first dividend was 24 cents. It cost more for the stamp to send it to me."
She said she went to a craft show in Montoursville and had her mom buy her a basket full of Coke items. She already had some of the things in the basket, but there was a Diet Coke pillow in the basket that she needed to pair with the regular Coke pillow she already had at home.
"I keep duplicates," she said. "I have four or five different sets of things. I might break a glass and I open up a pack and put it in my cupboard."
Cillo also said she has a few very valuable items in her collection. She bought a ceramic house at Hills Department Store after Christmas one year for $15 that is now worth about $800.
"My dad is an antiques dealer and I have a couple antique coolers and an old rusted tray from 1908," she said. "(I have) a punch board that has never been punched. My mom sells Tupperware and I have Anita Bryant postcards displaying Coke bottles."
Of all the items Cillo has in her collection, she still has one item on her wish-list - a mailbox - something she said she has been in search of for a long time.
Cillo said she doesn't plan to stop her collection any time soon. She just can't help herself when she sees something with the Coca-Cola logo, she has to have it.
"It's something to see," she said of her collection. "I can't stop it, it's on a runaway train. I have a license plate that says Coke girl."
Cillo said she loves getting gifts from family and friends to add to her collection. She finds it extra special when someone gives her something she has never seen before and looks forward to all the new items she will add to her collection.
