The Christmas Village

Back in the olden times Sears sold a lighted Christmas Village for $4.99, my mom picked one sometime around the time when I was born. It would sit on our mantle during the Christmas season and then go back into the box. My mom also created a second Christmas Village, actually Santa's workshop, complete with train to put on top of the piano. Every year this continued right up to about 1998. The location of villages may have changed but they always seemed be there.

When I got married, literally one of our first purchases was Sparkle Town, a Shiny Brite brand Christmas Village. You ask did you get married in December? No, but we spend part of our honeymoon in Leavenworth. For eight years now the village has made it's way into the Christmas decor, again locations not always the same, I don't think we have had the thing in the same place twice. We have tweaked the presentation a bit, we run railroad tracks down the middle of town, creating an, "wrong side of the tracks," or Dishevelledville.

A couple of years ago, my sister gave me the reminates of both the Christmas Village (no buildings) and Santa's Workshop, now a train visits Sparkle Town and Dishevelledville each Christmas.

Tonight a couple of photos, one of the Sears Christmas Village and the other Santa's workshop. These are the earliest photos I could find of each, the Village is from 1970 and workshop is from 1971. And note that Santa's workshop started out as a bunch of Fisher Price people in the snow with a Tyco train.