It Takes a Village

When I was a kid, the highlight of the Christmas season was putting together the Christmas village.  My mom collected the little ceramic houses, and each year, my dad would get her a new one.  Now, we weren't wealthy.  In fact, when I was really young, Dad stayed in and out of work, so the houses were always picked out months in advance and put on lay-away.  Then, right around Thanksgiving, Daddy would go by the mall to pay them off, generally bearing homemade pumpkin bread as a thank you to the nice salesladies who'd helped him all year.  Dad was a little bit awesome like that.

Most people would probably consider these an unnecessary extravagance, especially considering they had a kid in private school, braces, and extra-curriculars, but Mom loved them, Dad loved Mom, and the whole process was such a wonderful family activity.  This village was our Christmas, to be honest.

The day after Thanksgiving, Mom got up bright and early and started making chili.  We'd see her again sometime late afternoon.  Dad headed outside to get whatever table-like contraption he'd put together for that year's display, and I'd...well, being a kid, I'd generally watch t.v. until my friends came over to help. 

Around noon, Daddy would venture up the scary pull-down ladder into the attic, and pull down the Christmas decorations:  garland, tree (if we opted for fake), little muppet baby dolls in Santa hats, tacky bubble lights that Mom absolutely adored, every ugly ornament I'd ever made, knick-knacks and whatsits and thingamajigs, and, of course, houses. 

I think my favorite year was the year the Alabama/Auburn game was on.  Dad was a big Alabama fan, and a little peeved that he had to go up in the attic before commercial.  Suddenly, someone scored, and in his race to find out which team, he lost his footing and ended up pulling a Clark Griswold--half in the attic, and half in the bedroom below.  I honestly couldn't tell you who won that game, but that image is burned in my mind.  Mom laughed for about ten minutes straight.  Dad was less amused.

Somewhere around late afternoon, we'd finally get started building.  At last count, there were, I believe, thirty-seven houses.  Some were beautiful, collectible Department 56 Dicken's houses.  Some were ceramic banks.  A couple were wooden monstrosities that my grandfather and I built.  Nothing matched, but it didn't matter.  Someone would pop National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation into the VCR (and later, DVD player), we'd ladle steaming bowls of Mom's chili, and get to work figuring out what went where. 

My friends and I designed the city.  We decided where the shopping district, residential areas, and even "the other side of the tracks" should be.  Then Dad would get to work laying down lights and making sure nothing interfered with the train track or tunnel or mountain, or whatever new gimmick he'd come up with for that year.  After the houses were in place, Mom would come in to help lay down snow, add people, and come up with the village's story.  She wrote at least one of the stories down somewhere.  I wish I could find it.

The village took up an entire wall.  There were cobblestone streets, working street lamps, a moving skating pond, and about three dozen little people.  During the day it was impressive, but at night, all lit up, it was magical.  I loved when my family friends came by with toddlers.  The parents would panic that the babies would break something, but they never did.  They just moved the little people around and ooh-ed and aah-ed at the pretty shinies.   

A couple of years after the Alabama/Auburn incident, Daddy passed away.  That first Christmas without him hit the 6-month mark, and Mom nor I could bring ourselves to even think about the village.  The next year, we realized that we physically couldn't get the houses out of the attic.  We also didn't have anywhere to put the village, since Dad always dismantled the tables after we finished with them.  We left the village in the attic and went to Sam's to pick up a tiny, make-do village for the coffee table. 

Last year, Mom was able to try again.  Eight years had passed, and she was re-married, living in a new house.  My step-dad had been able to get the houses out of the attic for us.  My well-meaning husband and less-than-interested brother and I got in the dining room and set up the houses while Mom made chili.  We couldn't fit all the houses in the display, and it wasn't nearly as elaborate as anything Daddy ever came up with, but it was nice.  It felt right.

This year, I put up my very first village.  I took the tiny, make-do village, and set it up on a desk in my dining room.  There are only six houses (five from the set, and my music shop from the original village) and I can't light them up, but it's a start.  I'll plan better for next year.  Thomas is a stickler for scale, so he helped me pick out little people who could actually fit through the little doors, and each person has a story.  Granted, his stories and my stories vary wildly (me:  "Here's a little girl and her mother on their way to church."  Thomas:  "This little boy is going to try to dig up this tree, just to see if he can!"), and he has asked if it can be an Amity-style sea-side village next year, to accommodate a shark fin sticking up out of the water, but I'll take it.  All I know is that it's Christmas, Mom and I have our village, and all is right with the world.

You can read about some other Christmas villages here, here, here, and here.  If you have any family traditions you'd like to share, I'd love to read about them in the comments.