I have always loved Christmas Villages (and miniature things in general) and ever since I was a little kid I wished for a Christmas Village of my own! Over the past several years I've collected a bunch of Dept 56 Christmas Village pieces from estate sales and ebay! These are mostly from the "New England Village" sets, but there are lots of different themes. First I pull out all my boxes from the attic, set up my tables, and make the foundation for the houses to sit on. Here I have a 6-foot folding table and a square card table. The upper part is cardboard boxes with a later of leftover styrofoam from insulating my garage door to make an upper level. Next I unbox the houses and large pieces and play around with where I want them to go. I stacked up smaller pieces of foam to create variation in height among the houses. Then I take all of the houses off, run the cords to every spot where I planned to put a lit piece, and then lay the snow blanket on top. (A snow blanket i
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