Every year since my wife was pregnant we’ve been buying 1 or 2 North Pole Village houses or accessories each year as a way of adding a little whimsey to our New England Village display. Now 8 years later, the elves have fully taken over the village, so much so that the New England houses and accessories are remain packed in the attic. Also, now 7 years old, our twins, especially my daughter, thinks that she’s a design expert and that the village needs to be set up exactly as she wants. But, before she has her say, there are a few basics that need to be taken care of to make your Village look its best.

A flat, sturdy table is a must. Warped and wobbly card tables should be avoided for two reasons. First, you don’t want your village houses and accessories to resemble the aftremath of an earthquake should some one bump into the table. Second, it’s much easier to make everything stand straight on a flat surface. Since you don’t  want anyone looking at the table legs, cover it with a red or green bed sheet. You can now also store all your village boxes under the table in stead of bringing them back to the attic/basement/storage.

Next, cover the top of the table with a layer of  we first your village to look like it’s covered with snow, first roll out enough blanket snow to cover the top of the table and a little down the sides (or not, whichever you prefer). This will provide not only the snowy back ground for your village, but it is also a great way to hide the cords for your house’s lights. But before you can hide the cords, you need to know where the major pieces (the lighted houses) will be located. I find that the best way to do this is without the lights inserted into the base, and the cords dangling below. Everything is much easier to move around without having to worry about the cord getting tangled, of a heavy adapter banging into a church steeple, or creating any other type of unwanted damage.

After you layout where you want to place all of the houses, cut a slit in the snow blanket and feed the light through from underneath (this is much easier than cutting a very large slit to fit the adapter plug through. Some houses also have secondary plugs for additional motion (such as the Yummy Gummy Gumball Factory and the M&M Candy Factory), which must also be fed through the slit. Once all of your major pieces are located, plug all the cords into a power strip. Depending on how many lighted pieces you have, it may be necessary to use multiple power strips, but try to only have one plugged into the wall (this means that you may need to plug one or more power strips into another). The reason for this is that when you want to turn on your villages lights, you will only need to flip the switch on a single power strip.

After the houses are wired, and lit up, it’s time to add the accessories. Some houses come with accessories of their own, usually a person or object that is directly related to the theme of the house. Most accessories, however, are small groups of people, or objects and people (such as the Smores Stand with Elves) which are added to create a more complete scene (I can’t say a more realistic scene when I’m talking about elves eating smores, but you get the idea). Other common accessories are lamp posts, brick walls, trees, and paths (which can be made from brick, gumballs, M&Ms, peppermints, or anything else that relates to your villages theme). One final touch is to weave a string or two of Christmas tree lights (use ones with a white cord so it blends in with the snow) through out your village. This will illuminate the entire village, not just the houses, and once topped with buffalo snow, make the entire scene appear to glow.

 It generally takes us the better part of a day (~6 hrs) to set up the entire village. This is from the time I go into the attic to start bringing down all of the boxes, until the last bit of buffalo snow is in place and all the (now empty) boxes are stored under the village table. Every year it’s a little different (this year we placed ~1″ thick books under the houses in the back so they would appear to be on a hill, and easier to see), but it’s always a fun time for the whole family. It also helps to solve one of our twins biggest arguments: who gets to turn on the Christmas Tree lights. Now with the Village, one lights up the tree, and the other gets to light up the village. Then the next day they switch. The whole family is happy, especially my wife and I. Happy Holidays!