Christmas Village Time

We have had a busy week at our house! A joint birthday celebration for my sister and myself with our family, a quiet (kid-free!) shopping trip with a sweet friend, a rare night out with my husband and good friends, Thanksgiving celebrations at school and a very special weekend visit from our close friends. A stomach bug hit half of our family pretty hard in the middle of all of this, my bout unfortunately arriving on my actual birthday. Before it took me down, however, I was able to enjoy some of the extra fun things my birthday week usually brings:

 
1. Free birthday drink at Starbucks

2. Free Beauty Insider gift from Sephora

3. Department 56 Christmas Village setup time!!!


Before any eye rolling and thinking to yourself "can't we have Thanksgiving first?!" Please understand. I'm not skipping Thanksgiving. I can assure you it will be well celebrated with family, we will be counting our many blessings, and we will eat plenty of turkey, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, pies and bread. Especially bread. I'll likely eat more bread than a boulangerie makes in a day. Ok? I love Thanksgiving. The meaning, the traditions, the parade! But I fail to see how putting Christmas decor out before then means anyone is skipping it or diminishing its value. If someone's birthday falls on Thanksgiving should they not have balloons or a birthday banner because it would take away from Thanksgiving? That's silly! They can both happen together and Thanksgiving's feelings won't be hurt at all!

So at the beginning of my birthday week, I picked up my Chestnut Praline Latte at Starbucks, my NARS lip pencils from Sephora and started pulling my Department 56 village houses out of storage. If you aren't familiar, Department 56 manufactures collectible, themed holiday village houses and accessories. My mom's family began collecting, starting with my grandmother, in the 70's. I remember as a child being in awe of her glowing houses and glittering accessories, all intricately set up on the bay window seat of their formal living room. The tradition has carried on through my mother and all of my sisters. We each collect a different themed village so seeing each others' setup is always so much fun!

My mom started me on the New England village almost 20 years ago so all of my buildings have been retired, which means they are no longer being manufactured. But they can be found at online collectible shops or auction sites like ebay. Here are a couple of my favorites from my collection:
 

Jeremiah Brewster House

Bobwhite Cottage

My husband also started a second collection for me a few years back- Christmas in the City. The household favorite piece by far is the Cathedral of St. Nicholas. The kids love when we get this one out especially because it is absolutely enormous, has a ton of details like stained glass windows and flying buttresses. Plus, they get to say flying buttresses over and over, which they think is hilarious. Buttresses. Anyway, right now we set this village up in the kitchen on top of the cabinets. I only have four of these buildings so far so it will be fun to add to it over the years!

Cathedral of St. Nicholas

I like to lay out my entire collection to see what I'm working with because despite the fact that I set it up every year, I never set it up the same way. Some of the boxes are a bit worse for the wear, having been through quite a few moves and being handled by eager little "helpers." So once I have everything out, I pull each out of its box and stack the boxes to the side since I use some of them for height in the display.

I start setting up by laying the "blanket of snow" (a white tablecloth) down over the display surface, which these days is our upright piano. Then I just start placing the houses around, using the boxes and a few books as risers underneath the tablecloth. Each house has a UL cord with a 4-watt bulb which fits into a hole in either the bottom or back, so I try to hide the cords underneath the "snow" too. Once the houses are set up, I can add the accessories. I have a cute little gazebo I set in the center of town and several townspeople among the bottom row. I used to add cotton batting and faux snow flakes over the entire display but since having kids, I have decided the mess just isn't worth it right now! I am planning to pick up some bottle brush trees to add this year, but for now we are enjoying it just as it is!

This is typically the only Christmas decorating I start before Thanksgiving and it has become a bit of a tradition for me to set it up the week of my birthday. Just another fun thing to look forward to! I love the soft peaceful glow, the memories I have and the ones we're creating with our kids. They get so excited when it's "Christmas Village Time." They ask daily if they can play with it, and while they understand it isn't really a toy, I do let them move the townspeople around throughout the village. I want it to be something they can truly enjoy, not something they're completely forbidden to touch. Because of that, I do have to say that a couple pieces have suffered the consequences and have had to be repaired. But seeing their excitement and overhearing the townspeople "doing their Christmas shopping" or "heading to church" is absolutely worth it.

As we start this week of Thanksgiving, I realize how blessed I am to have so many reasons to be thankful and these memories and traditions are just a couple. I hope that your Thanksgiving is filled with many blessings, good company, much happiness, lots of love, and bread. Plenty of bread. 

Happy Thanksgiving! xoxo