Hello Everyone,
Let the decorating begin! I love to put my Christmas Village out every year, and create a magical fairyland. I would love to live in this little village. This is a first for me to put it up before Thanksgiving. I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm running out of time already since Thanksgiving is so late this year.
I started collecting the houses in the 1980's. The collection has grown over the years, and looks like a very realistic village. My mom collected them and it was a great gift to give her year after year. Now I have the houses I gave her, and incorporate them in my village.
I have the downtown area on the top shelf. Then we move on to the suburbs and then on to the country area.
This old pie safe is a great way to display my collection. It takes hours and hours to get it just right. First I had to remove my cookbook collection before I could start decorating. The books are now all stored under the guest room bed. I'll have to fish them out with a rake after Christmas. Heaven help me if a recipe I want to make is in the middle of the stacks under the bed!
The anticipated snow started falling yesterday afternoon. Normally our storms begin with rain, and turn to snow over time. The temps plummeted, and it just started snowing, and snowing! It kept on snowing through the night, and it's still snowing.
I named this post "reflections and traditions". Not only was I seeing the reflection of the lights in my village, I was reflecting about family and Christmas traditions. A tear came to my eye when I opened a box from my aunt, addressed to my mom's house in Paradise. They are all gone now. My mom passed first, then my aunt, and her cute little house in Paradise was lost in the Camp Fire in Paradise. All gone now, but the tradition lives on.
After we dig ourselves out today, I will start putting up the tree. Living in snow country adds an extra level of effort to your day and life. There is always yard work throughout the year, trying to keep the pine needles at bay, and now snow shoveling for the next four months. Maybe it keeps us young? Maybe it's the reason the Tylenol bottle is heavily tapped in to? Maybe it's the reason for a nice afternoon nap.
Soon,
Lynn