Train Village – Learn To Be Wise

Christmas Village Fun 2024

“Wheels are rolling!”

Open House Season

It has been a joy for my wife and I to welcome about forty people to our home in the various open house events that we have hosted. We love to have our friends and neighbors visit anyway and the Christmas village set provides the attraction. JoAnne and generous friends provide goodies and everyone has a good time. It is the very most fun when a couple little folks are present and I am down on the floor with them helping them run the trains. However, the Lionel LionChief system is so simple that preschoolers can run trains with a minimum of instruction. But the children quickly learn the older system too.

Dawn view

Vignettes make it interesting

When I design the set, I try to arrange mini scenes within the large one. This is a big part of the fun of the set-up. This year, I was gifted two trucks with headlights by Kris Hayden. That provided an essential prop for the featured picture scene with the pick-up truck being used to illuminate the church manger scene while the outdoor carol sing is in progress.

Christmas village Hardware store vignette

The second truck is seen in this scene of workers unloading from it after dark at the hardware store. I hope the driver in the red car isn’t too impatient.

Here’s another group of carolers stopping at a home like our youth group used to do when I was young. Perhaps an elderly Grandma is huddled by the woodstove for which the man and boy are splitting and stacking wood.

This piece (my wife’s favorite) makes its own vignette but I enhance it with the hot-chocolate stand in front and the tourist bus. Also (not shown) there is an outhouse off to the right partially hidden in the pines.

American Girl dolls visit

Molly (in braids) and her friend Samantha visited the set this week! Our daughter’s Mom-in-law, Sue Stater, enjoys American Girl dolls and often brings Molly and a friend along when she stops by to visit. It’s another way to have fun with a Christmas village.

Do we ever have wrecks?

Since it is obvious that my display has limited access to the back of the lower tracks, I am usually asked about wrecks. Do the trains roll? How do I handle it? Of course we have wrecks–and sometimes in the back where things get difficult. I do my best to prevent them by good track preparation. But they happen. For example, this year a car’s weak coupler opened in the back and I didn’t see the separated train as I was talking. The engine came around and then smashed into the back of the stalled train, derailing it in the worst spot. I had to enlarge a hidden access hole and haul the engine, tender, and derailed car up through it. I was then able to push the remainder of the train to a spot where I could reach it. And currently, Thomas the Tank engine is still under the platform having been rolled clear of the track by an enthusiastic young engineer. But overall, we’ve had a pretty trouble-free run this year! My philosophy is that if it is too fancy or expensive for kids to play with, it is not something I want to own. I find that if I do have something I consider too fragile, it just doesn’t get run.

Gallery

Here are a few more pictures to enjoy. Click on a picture to enlarge it.

[Show as slideshow]

Plus five ideas for a great Christmas village

Let’s get started with some pictures. I always have fun trying to take close-ups in the Christmas village. It’s not easy as I need to hold the camera very low to get a good angle. But I like the result. The fun part is to let the imagination take over and pretend you are a child again who can easily invent a story behind each scene.

The Pewterer gets a new stove. This scene accents a Dept. 56 Dickens Village piece.

Idea two: Create mini story scenes all over the set. These guys unloading a pot-bellied stove invite all kinds of imaginative speculation. How heavy were those kinds of stoves? Is the boy on the right by the lamp waving at the wagon driver?

Welcoming Grandpa at the railroad station in front of the village square.

Idea one. Notice the multiple levels on the upper right side. I find multiple levels add interest. They also allow for hidden things like wires and railroad tunnels and improve sight lines for viewers too.

Village Pewterer buys a new stove — Note the guys struggling with the stove in front of the horse.

Conversation with the lamplighter.

More on idea three: Emphasize themes you love. I grew up in Western NY and served in a church outside Syracuse NY for 22 years, so I celebrate with snow features. I loved sledding as a kid too! Actually my wife is the bigger snow fan.

Singing around the manger scene outside the church! This scene relates in many ways. For me, the dominant one is our worship of Jesus as we celebrate his birth. Carol singing is a central part of that worship for me.

Idea three: Major in things you love! As a retired pastor, my Christmas village has four churches and several carol singers too. I also love Lionel O-gauge and this year I have three big loops and two short diorama tracks to celebrate the hobby.

Conversation with the lamplighter — The camera provides focus on the conversation with the lamplighter.

Upper Village Square — Having been raised in a wood-heated home, I can relate to the wood-splitters.

The skating rink in the daytime.

More on idea four: Use different areas. Here the separate area allows for a focus item, the skating rink.

Upper Village Square.

Idea four. Divide the display into various areas. I have used this to accommodate varying time periods, slight differences in display pieces that don’t work well side by side, and different themes.

The skating rink — The house behind is a grandson favorite.

Idea five is no secret to anyone who has tried making a Christmas village, but to anyone who is just beginning it is an essential tip. Use layers of cloth. For example, to keep things white, I use white sheets for the under-layer. Then, a snow-white felt-like or gauze-like cloth makes the top layer(s). The layers hide the piece of blue shiny foam that creates the icy pond look in one section. They hid all the power wires for both house lights and accessory wiring, even one whole power strip. On the hill particularly, the layers smooth over and hide canyons in the woodwork creating the smooth hillsides that you see. They also smooth out the edges wherever there is a foam block underneath to raise a house up a little.