Christmas Village 2020

I don’t know how it happened. I’m not even sure what I came across. I think I was looking for some recipes on Pintre….err….Google…and came across a picture of one – but it hit me. I wanted a Christmas Village! It hit me so hard that I text the OA guys, I text some friends, and I had my mind made up. In the next 24 hours, I was building my first ever Christmas Village.

Now, when I did a quick Amazon search, my Christmas Village nearly ended. There is, just like with anything, a top tier brand that sports a $50-$75 price tag PER ITEM. I knew my Christmas Village wasn’t going to be that good. Especially not year one when I wasn’t sure how dedicated (or accepted) my village would be. So I did a little more research and found out that Walmart of course had some things but so did Dollar Tree! So I got onto the Dollar Tree website, found what I needed for $13. For basically a full village. I was stoked. Sure, shipping was another $13 but that’s okay. Then, the next day, I went to Walmart. I found a TON of things. Some very exciting. I started slow, kept it in check, and spent about $75. This counted the platform I would set it on and everything. So, for $100 I was all set for my “make or break” Christmas Village.

Now, a traditional village – well, maybe there’s not a super traditional village. But I wanted mine to be built on a board – then I was worried about painting the board white, or the snow or if it was temporary versus permanent so for year one, I bought some poster board and it’s worked great! (NOTE: my helpers made this ridiculously difficult)

Next, I had sketched out an idea – I was going to use some PS4 games as “mountains” or “hills” in my village and I wanted to use something for some bigger hills but I didn’t know what. Luckily, upon opening one of my items, there were two styrofoam slabs that worked perfect. But, before that, I wanted my Christmas Village to have a train. I did some more research and Thomas the Train was a popular option. Luckily, I had plenty of those!

Once I had the track and the mountains, it was just a matter of putting some things in places and making sure it all made sense. For year one, anyway. I did get some buffalo snow, which I thought was like a fluff or cotton thing – it’s not. It’s real snow. Crazy, but looks great in the village.

I got trees, cars, a large farm, buildings – I’ll give you some close ups, but I constructed my village carefully.

Here is the village bakery, a small church and a couple trees. Snow on the track with the train passing by. What a beautiful picture.

A toy store, a pet shop, grocery, and antique shop make up the shopping district (near the bakery) and Santa, Mrs. Clause, and a snowman sit closely by.

Three boys throw snowballs behind the shopping district, near the mountain of pines in the background.

Panning across the village, a school sits up front next to Santa, the greeter for my village. The school, with nice little things on the side (mix and match) next to a restaurant, a house in the background and another small church on the right side. The trees are some of my favorites. Just love the scenery.

A better look at the restaurant and church – another side piece that I got – the light up truck with the Christmas tree in the back. It was a bigger piece that was fairly cheap – I loved it. A tavern in the background up on the hill for this side. A place to go enjoy some spiked eggnog!

I opted to get one “large” piece for my first year Christmas Village. I choose a farm. I picked this, mostly because of the kids – along with some horses on the side. It’s light up and is a nice piece in the back of the village.

So, overall, that’s my village. My year one attempt.

So, what do you think? What are your thoughts on my year 1 village? Do you have a Christmas Village? I’m going to try to go the day after Christmas and see if I can score some deals 50% off for next year. It’s super fun and I really enjoyed creating it!