Christmas Village 2013 - The New House

Since we moved into the new house earlier this year, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out where we were going to set up the Christmas tree, the Christmas village, and how we were going to do the outside Christmas lights.

As the new miniature room was finished, and we were moving the miniatures from the garage, I saw the sheets of plywood that I have used under my village in previous years.  I had been going back and forth between setting up the village upstairs in the new studio, or finding a more public place for it.  It doesn't help matters that our living room is octagon shaped with traffic coming and going from 4 sides. Then it hit me! 

 I could move the couch out a couple of feet from the window, and wind it around the back.  Kind of like a window display.  I decided to add a dramatic slope down to the floor on the kitchen side so that my little nieces and nephews could enjoy the view too.

First step, drag all of the boxes out of the garage and pull the foam inserts out.

I stacked to empty plastic tubs under the sheet of plywood to give it the desired height.

Here is the view from the other side

I cut a piece of foam core to fit the oddly shaped corner of the octagon shaped living room and I traced around the curve of our sectional.

I supported it with 3 smaller plastic tubs left over from our move.

I had my son 'strength-test' the new base.

The next step was building up areas with the pieces of foam and creating the sloping mountain down to the lower level.  I think adding a lot of variety in the terrain makes the village more interesting.

We did a preliminary layout of the village and moved the foam around until everything looked just about right.  Keep in mind, we are going to cover the rest of the area with fabric batting and fake snow to smooth out the ups and downs.

 I won't go into the lighting this year, but you can see details of how I light the village by clicking on my post from last year here.

Here is the "skyline" from across the room

Here is the skyline including our Christmas tree and its reflection.

I added some snow flakes hanging from the ceiling this year.  My son loving calls them "apocalyptic" snow flakes because they are so large in relationship to the scale of the people and buildings.

I hope you enjoy the village as much as we do each year!  

To see the 2015 village click HERE