It was a day of post-holiday shopping several years ago that inadvertently put us on a path to what has become a surprising and greatly anticipated moment each year: the day the Christmas village gets set up.
We were at a Greenhouse and Gift Shop in BC not far from where my mom lives, checking out sales on Christmas décor. My husband spotted a light-up church complete with Nativity figures and little did we know it was the start of something special.
The next year he added a house, and the year after another house. Then a school, a hotel and theatre. Soon he started receiving pieces as gifts or he would select something new to add to the scene. It grew and it grew to the point that our Christmas village has become one of our favorite decorations each year. Well, it’s not so much decoration anymore as it is installation, since it has grown to the point that the village is soon going to need its own postal code.
The earliest known Christmas villages were Nativity displays. They grew larger when families in Europe began placing a variety of pieces around the manger scene to more fully depict Bethlehem. Paper, cardboard or whatever could be found around the house would be used to create buildings and countryside to complement the Nativity.
When an American department store owner saw these additions in the late 1800s, he built on the idea and soon entire villages could be found in stores and mail-order catalogues. The practice waned in the 1950s but saw a resurgence when ceramic items replaced the cardboard structures. They were sturdier, easier to store, and could become family heirlooms.
You can purchase all types of structures to create displays: farmhouses, train stations, workshops, fire halls, hospitals, churches, any store you can imagine, all wired to create a rather magical display as light pours through each and every little window pane. But prior to the magic comes a whole lot of work. Well, for my husband. While I enjoy decorating other areas of the house, he is the one who does the village.
It begins with moving in a 6-foot table, adding levels of Styrofoam, and unpacking and placing each piece. No two years are the same since he is always changing up the kind of town he creates. Once each piece is positioned, a considerable amount of time is spent crawling under the table to get all the cords organized so that the flip of one switch will illuminate the whole display.
Each time I look at the village I declare a different piece to be my favorite. I love the Victorian house with attached atrium. Or the toy boutique, or maybe my favorite is the pond where children are out skating. I love all the details. The tiny wreaths on the houses, the miniature strings of Christmas lights, the carollers holding manuscripts of music, the children on toboggans, the Nativity scene outside the church. It all weaves together to tell a story. Then again, most decorations do.
Just a few feet away, nestled in garland at the top of the staircase are two special items that come out of the Christmas box each year. They are small and would likely go unnoticed amidst the scale of other Christmas elements. But they matter.
The first is a red ornament with a staff of music, two little angels and the words ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ in white etching. I loved that red ornament more than any other decoration that hung on our tree when I was growing up. A few years ago, I asked my mom if I could have it and I can’t wait each year to hang it up. The other is a little red elf my husband has had for as long as he can remember. The elf sits with his arms wrapped around his tucked-in legs, flashing an adorable impish grin. Neither of these would draw much attention from others, but then again, they’re not meant to.
I love getting the house ready with our touches of Christmas. It’s special—because it’s special to us. The lights and candles, pinecones and poinsettias and even a holiday village are the story keepers of our Christmases past, just waiting to be brought out of storage bins and made part of a new celebration. Their beauty lies not in the perfection of the design, but in the delight that it brings and the memories it inspires. That’s my outlook.
