400 inflatable turkeys were featured across the city last year.

Drive through the city of McKinney this month, and you'll notice a theme.

"This is Jerry, our turkey," Anna Sanders said with a large inflatable turkey flapping in the breeze in her yard. "Every year we see more turkeys in our neighborhood and in McKinney."

It started in 2016 on Church Street near downtown McKinney, when neighbors put up inflatable turkeys in their front yards.

"That first year, it's like, really? An inflatable turkey," Carolyn Curfman said, laughing.

The Curfman home is among the group that started the trend. They coordinated to begin on Halloween.

"At 9 o'clock on the dot, everybody's turkey begins to inflate, Halloween night. That's how we start the Thanksgiving season!"

Denton is the official Halloween Capital of Texas. Grapevine is the Christmas Capital. So Visit McKinney thought, why not?

"We're hoping we're the Inflatable Turkey Capital," Visit McKinney Digital Coordinator Emily Myrick said. "We won't be the Thanksgiving capital, but a little bit more niche; little weirder."

Visit McKinney really leaned in this year, adding a website and app that lists all the turkeys by name, so visitors and residents can go on 'turkey hunts.'

"I just thought I would lean into the weirdness, to the whimsy of it," Myrick said. "We need that right now. We need some light-hearted joy!"

Myrick said the other goal was to bring more visitors to town to experience the weirdness and stay for the shopping and restaurants.

"It makes our town charming," Sanders said. "There's just sort of a fun sense of unity, something we're all doing."

"Let's do it more next year. I wanna make it bigger and better," Myrick said. "I don't know what that's gonna be, but I'm excited!"