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GREENSBORO — Don’t bother singing “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” at Diane Stanley’s house. The jolly old fellow has already arrived. By the hundreds.

Every year at Thanksgiving, Stanley and her husband, Jim, take down their regular decorations — paintings, knicknacks, memorabilia —  and box them up and take them to the attic.

Then, down come the boxes filled with Santas. Papier mâché Santas. Wooden Santas. Resin Santas. Fabric Santas.

Ceramic Santas. Pottery Santas. Gourd Santas. Plastic Santas. Metal Santas. Wax Santas. Even a concrete Santa and one made of stones.

An estimated 500.

“We’ve never been able to determine the number,” Diane Stanley says. “You just lose count.”

She has so many that she and her friends call her residence Santa Land.

Everywhere you look, there’s a Santa.

Santa prints on the walls. Santa finials on the lamps. Santa ornaments on the Christmas tree. Santa rugs on the floor. Santa place mats on the table. Santa pillows on the couches and chairs.

She’s got musical Santas, mechanical Santas, Father Christmas Santas, traditional Santas, salt-and-pepper shaker Santas, college basketball Santas (Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest, specifically) and a lighted Santa on her front porch.

Fifteen teddy bear Santas adorn her bed. Twenty one pottery Santas fill a small table in the foyer. Fifty-one Santas — no doubt anticipating the arrival of the real Santa — wait on the living room mantel.

Three Santas take up residence in a bathroom. One’s sitting on a commode. One’s in a bath tub. One’s dressed in a night shirt and carries a candle.

“Pretty much anywhere in the house you will find them,” Stanley says. “It’s pretty extensive.”

The transformation of the Stanleys’ split-level house near Wesley Long Community Hospital takes about a week and lasts well into January.

Her husband helps.

“I just say, 'Where are we going to put the next one?’ ” says Jim Stanley, who owns a local accounting business. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it.”

Where to put the next one has become a concern. Five hundred Santas can quickly fill a house, even if some of them are only an inch tall.

“Last year, she said, 'I don’t have a place for another Santa,” says Sara Jones, Diane Stanley’s friend and a Santa collector herself. “I figure she can always find room for one more.”

Stanley says she’s still collecting, but just being more selective.

“I have put out the word pretty much that I only want different Santas in the future,” Stanley says. “When I say different, I mean different different.”

She’s certainly gotten different ones so far.

For example, she’s got an English walnut painted like a Santa.

She’s got a Santa in an outhouse.

She’s got a frog in a Santa hat that croaks Jingle Bells.

“There’s almost no duplication,” Stanley says of her collection. “That’s the neat thing.”

Stanley began collecting around 1984.

“I started buying a few just because I’ve always been a Christmas person,” she says. “As I started to buy Santas, friends started giving them to me for Christmas, birthdays, whatever.”

As the collection has grown, so has its impact.

Earlier this month, she took some of her Santas to her church where they served as table centerpieces for a women’s Christmas party.

Every year, she invites 16 of her female friends to her home for a Christmas brunch.

Every Christmas Eve, she holds an invitation-only open house. Anywhere from 85 to 140 people will show up.

It’s all about the festivities and fellowship and creating a Christmas family for the Stanleys, both of whom are only children. They have one son, Scott.

“The joy is sharing with others,” Stanley says.

If pressed, Stanley will identify a 4-inch tall Santa crafted by noted gnome creator Tom Clark as her favorite. Titled “Santa’s Home,” it depicts him after he’s made his rounds on Christmas Eve.

“He’s pooped,” Stanley says, “and his bag is empty.”

Yet Stanley says her Christmas decorations aren’t exclusively about Santa.

On an old butcher block table in her sunroom sits a creche that her father created years ago for her son. He made it of straw and twigs.

The figures of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus came from the Roses store that used to be at Friendly Center.

That was back in 1962. Long before the Santas began turning up at Stanley’s house.

“In the midst of all this Santa Land, we don’t forget the real reason for Christmas,” Stanley says. “(The creche) has been the centerpiece of our Christmas ever since.”

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com