Since we're on the subject

The dock/marina section of town

of my parents, I think this would be a good time to list my grievances discuss the villages.  When we were living in Logan, Utah, my mom got a job at ZCMI running their Christmas shop.  She discovered how insanely fun it can be to set up and play with those little Christmas villages.  The Department 56 villages are sold in fine specialty stores and online, in other words they are stupidly expensive.  There are multiple villages to choose from.  My mom choose the old timey Dickens Village for her house.  Over time she has bought pieces, received them as gifts and coached my dad into answering, "People and Trees,"  whenever he is asked what he wants for his birthday, father's day, and Christmas.  (Because she says the key to a good looking village is you can never have enough people or trees.)  She became a bit obsessed with designating us each our own village.  I was given the Original Snow Village which is a glossy 1950's theme city, and Krista- the "Christmas in the City" line, a New York style village.  Suzanne smartly claimed Dickens and then said she'd just inherit some day.  (Or at least she thought at the time that it was smart.)  Little did she know how huge my mother's collection would get.  We have had lots of fun over the years teasing my mom about the village.  One Christmas Suzanne and her then husband Eric had fun moving the fox from the fox hunt around just to mess with my mom. 

My dad has built several tables over the years to display this village and in the last few years they have added the extra dimension of a model train.  It takes a entire day to set up her village so it goes up sometime in October and stay well through the new year.  (I do not think it has been taken down yet this year.)  My own village hasn't been up this year or last because I was afraid of Mae breaking it.  It probably won't get put out til 2015 at the least.  I am excited to bust it out since last year we bought a cute little building called "Miss Mae's Rooming House."