For 20 years, Lyla and Phil Snover have cultivated and cared for Coupeville’s treasured winter guests.

Each holiday season, sometime between Thanksgiving and the first Saturday in December, smiling-faced snow people start lining the streets.

For one month a year more, than 100 plywood snow people fill most nooks and crannies.

It’s something a lot of people look forward to, especially Coupeville Mayor Nancy Conard.

She was kind of the catalyst for the project in 1994 after discovering a love for the cheery winter character.

Lyla said it was during a parks and rec commission meeting the topic was broached.

“Nancy said, ‘I wish we could have snowmen all over the town,’ ” Lyla recalls.

She then went on to discuss logistics and wondered who would be able to cut out the plywood characters.

“I said, ‘Phil can do it,’ ” Lyla said.

“There are a lot of things I get volunteered for ,and I don’t even know,” Phil added.

“It’s called spousal support,” Lyla responds with laughter.

The first year, Phil cut out 6-8 snow people and a small group gathered to help paint them. They were put up along Main Street for all to see.

“It was well received,” Conard said. “We kept paying for the plywood and people painted them.

“People started showing up to help. Now she’s got a whole squad to help her.”

Each year the population has grown. What started as a dozen snow people has grown to an estimated 132.

Although over the years, Lyla guesses they’ve done around 200, counting ones that have had to be remade.

“I’ve only wore out one saw…so far,” Phil jokes.

It’s a labor of love, with a core group of people tasked with the honor.

But it isn’t just a month-long project.

For 11 months out of the year, most of the snow people are housed in the Snovers’ garage. Each year the Snovers and volunteers carefully inspect each one, repairing them and touching up paint.

“I’m not very good at painting them,” Lyla said. “Over the years I’ve got better.”

But as the project has grown, so has the help. Lyla now calls on the help of volunteers like artist Chuck Poust, who is now tasked with doing all of the lettering, or Vicky Reyes, who’s helped the last couple of years touching up worn down snow people.

“I like to call it the snow people spa,” said volunteer Gwen Samelson.

The “spa” used to be held in October and November, but has since moved to August and September — warmer months since Phil’s garage still doesn’t have a heater.

And once those snow people are ready for their month-long show, Lyla calls on “The Bishop Boys” for installation.

It used to take Malcolm and Paul Bishop two days to install all of the snow people, but now they’ve got the task down to a day.

“It’s hard to get up and get going when you know it’s ahead of you,” Malcom Bishop said. “Some days, we’re chasing the daylight.”

But the end result is always worth it.

“When we’re putting them up, we get people honking and waving,” Malcolm Bishop said. “So some people do appreciate it.”

And after 20 years, the appreciation and hard work continues. The Snovers certainly don’t appear to be stopping.

“Every year Lyla says, ‘Oh, there are too many, we got to stop,’ ” Samelson said. “Then she’ll turn around and say, ‘We need something for Easter.’ ”

“We’ll probably give it up when we’re 90,” Phil jokes.

And Conard probably wouldn’t mind even more smiling faces gracing the streets of the town she grew up in.

Phil says every year when he runs into her, she asks him if he’s going to make some more.

“It’s just evolved into something that’s uniquely Coupeville,” Conard said. “I drive up and down the streets looking at them all, and each year I have a new favorite.

“It just feels good; it makes the holidays feel special in Coupeville.”