Christmas Villages

[AppleDumpling]

I have the original Dept 56 Alpine Village that I got back in the 80’s. It goes on a console table in the living room.

 

[tcufrog]

We have a LEGO Christmas village we put together as a family every year. It even includes an electric LEGO Christmas train. It's a lot of work but we enjoy doing it.

 

[china mom]

Bitter rant warning: During one of my FIL's "I don't know how many Christmases I have left" moments (many Christmases ago), he gave my some a pretty substantial number of his village pieces because my son "liked them so much". I am sure my son was just being polite. So, the following year, we were hosting. I set up the village so as not to hurt FIL's feelings. Now, I do nothing halfway so I spent tons of money on Styrofoam and fake snow to make elevated landscapes. I spent countless hours building the platform, running lights and placing the houses.

Come the day of the big party, he gave a lame excuse and didn't come over. While I appreciate looking at the villages set up by others, I am not doing that one again.

 

[Babs Johnson]

In the 60’s my mother had this set of cardboard houses/church etc. that went under the tree. By the early 70’s they were getting ratty so she replaced them with ceramic ones. She went to some type of craft class where there were unfinished houses that you could paint. She displayed them for decades on top of the foyer credenza. My sister has them now.

 

[leebee]

I saw someone bought the Dollar Tree village, spray painted them all white then did trim work in metallic gold. It was beautiful!!!

YES, I have a village ~ my Mom painted the entire thing. While I really don't have a functioning place for it, when she passed a couple years ago it became important to me to put out. Last year for my gift my DH built one of these ladder shelves and the village sits on it in my big kitchen window.

What an incredibly thoughtful and loving gift from your husband!

 

[mom2rtk]

I had a full Department 56 Snow Village for both Christmas and Halloween. Put it all up and took it down every year. Loved it. Then it became more work than fun, so sold it all off.

 

[mumto3girls]

I had a full Department 56 Snow Village for both Christmas and Halloween. Put it all up and took it down every year. Loved it. Then it became more work than fun, so sold it all off.

I understand this completely. I have the North Pole and haven’t added to it in years, but so much work. I also have a few Halloween, but not enough to be a chore.

I love how it looks, but setting it up and taking it down needs to be “scheduled”. Takes a full day to put it up and often still a few things to be done after that full day. Taking it down is quicker, but still a half day. And it’s messy with boxes everywhere, that styrofoam packaging flaking all over the place, the fake snow…

I didn’t put it up last year—just ran out of time. I really missed seeing it, but after Christmas I felt relief in not having to put it all away. I think about getting rid of some it to make it more manageable, but that makes me feel a little sad.

 

[mac_tlc]

Here are a couple pictures from the 2022 edition:

 

[mac_tlc]

These three were taken from above the village, looking down:

 

[Mysterian]

I seem to have this obsession with Christas Villages. I am currently rocking 3 of them right now. I cannot control myself. Is anybody else all excited about Christmas villages? This is my exclusively Dollar Tree village. I am am still working on the hodgepodge village, I have another piece on order from Kohls. Dept 56 has about priced me out of the market.

Cool! I bought a few of those DT light-up signs, to steal the electronics out of. The village houses that DT released are actually decent.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

Well.... villages are all fun and games 'til the cat barfs in it.

 

[mumto3girls]

These three were taken from above the village, looking down:

Your display is beautiful—I really enjoyed your pictures.

 

[Mysterian]

I made mine out of 100% Dollar Tree items. They were out of fake snow, I just used a DT white mesh laundry bag instead.

As for everything else, let’s just say I improvised…



Here’s Patty Pork-Rinds handing Stitch a gift:


Skeletor throwing snowballs at his neighbors’ pesky kid. “Nyah!“


Mickey and He-Man join in as Bumblebee makes a snowman. Shrek watches it all from his mobile home.


Big Theo helps Georgie decorate the tree, while Starscream debates bagels with Chef Burns.

 

[DodgerGirl]

My grandmother started my mom's obsession of Christmas villages and it all started when my grandmother used to visit my family sometimes during winter she brought Mom three village shops that my grandmother made herself and Mom was impressed with the style of how she made them and then Mom's Christmas village obsessed really took off and every year she buys tons of village houses and tiny porcelain figurines of people and animals to expand her village and it has grown. So far my mom has some Department 56 village houses and added a skating pond that lights up and even the village from A Christmas Story is featured too and we love it so much Mom keeps it year-round and it's such a wonderful thing and we display it on a shelf now because my cat used to stomp like The Incredible Hulk and mess it up when we had it on our coffee table