COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A group of dolphins is called a pod. A group of monkeys, a troop. Crows, a murder.
And a group of unicorns is, according to the good folks of the internet, a “blessing.”
At the risk overstepping the bounds of corniness - please, bear with us here - a group of unicorns in one Columbia family’s front yard has become just that, a blessing to the surrounding neighborhood.
Right around Christmas, a family of 8-foot-tall unicorns began sprouting outside Ed and Tracy McDonnell’s house in the Old Woodlands neighborhood, quickly capturing the attention of neighbors, commuters and nearby school children who became enthralled with the evolving inflatable scene.
“People have been saying, ‘You have no idea how much joy you have brought to our neighborhood,’” said Paige Edwards, an Old Woodlands resident and friend of the McDonnells. “The unicorns are everything.”
It started with Ed’s plan to surprise his youngest daughter, 9-year-old Sidney, who he believed was still a fan of unicorns, as many young girls are. He bought an inflatable unicorn - which turned out to be twice as big as he expected - and set it in their front yard with their other Christmas decorations.
“We came home and she was like, ‘Dad, I outgrew unicorns,’” Ed McDonnell said.
Sidney admitted, “At first, I was embarrassed.”
A neighborhood friend of Sidney’s turned out to be much more enthused by the yard unicorn than she, so McDonnell ordered another inflatable and surprised the girl by sneaking it onto her own roof (with the help of her father), where it reigned for a few days before McDonnell brought it back to his yard to live with its mate.
But why stop there? “It seems like the unicorns are making people happy,” McDonnell and his wife thought. “What if we got a couple more?”
Thanks to Amazon, two unicorns soon became eight. On Christmas Eve, with permission, the McDonnells deployed six of them to the yards of friends and family members across the neighborhood to surprise their children.
“My children saw it and went running outside and had to have pictures with the unicorn,” said Melanie Alphin, a friend and neighbor of the McDonnells. “Now my daughter’s expecting a unicorn for her birthday.”
After Christmas, Ed McDonnell brought the inflatables one by one back to his family’s house, creating a daily changing scene in their front yard.
Neighbors took notice as a new unicorn appeared, seemingly out of thin air, each day. The neighborhood Facebook page lit up with exclamations about the creatures. Passersby stopped and took pictures.
McDonnell said he hoped he might fill up the yard with a new unicorn for each of the 12 days of Christmas, through Epiphany on Jan. 5. Unable to get enough inflatables shipped in time, however, he improvised: Unicorn piñatas from the Dollar General became “babies,” including one special piñata baby that looks suspiciously like a llama but is not, McDonnell insisted, a llama - “He’s a unicorn. He just doesn’t have a horn.”
Online, neighbors campaigned to name the babies (who became Hank, Skittles, Petunia and Speck, the, uh, llamacorn). And McDonnell kicked off an online hashtag, “Unicorns of Hope.”
One day while McDonnell was in the yard straightening the inflatables, “a lady pulled up, and she thanks me for doing it,” he said. “She said, ‘I don’t know how to say this, but you brought my husband out of depression.’ That’s probably what meant the most to me.”
Many of his neighbors agree. McDonnell’s simple plan to stir up a little happiness for his daughter ended up bringing hope and joy for the community through this part of a long, tough pandemic season.
“Especially now, when you can’t have like the big Christmas parties and you can’t do those things, I don’t know why but a unicorn makes it better,” Alphin said.
“In this weird, sad time in the world, they truly have brought joy to our neighborhood,” Edwards said.
But unicorns aren’t forever.
Most recently, McDonnell arranged the unicorns in a double-file line, walking toward what he dubbed the Santa Arch (another, less-glorified Christmas inflatable decoration). Two by two, the unicorns have disappeared into, let’s say, the land from which they came. By Friday, they had all disappeared from the McDonnells’ yard.
“It’s kind of sad, but I guess we knew they can’t last forever,” Alphin said.
But the hope persists - Old Woodlands hasn’t seen the last of the unicorns, McDonnell assured. He’s making plans for their reappearance in the near future, sure to bless the neighborhood again.
In all likelihood, unicorns will become a regular Christmas feature in this community.
“I don’t think I have a choice,” McDonnell said. “I would feel pretty … gluttonous if I just kept them for myself.”
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