When setting up you village display, start with a fresh layer of blanket snow. The blanket snow will not only cover your table top, but it also provides an appropriate setting for your winter village. As an added bonus, once you decide where your buildings will be placed, you can hide the cords under the snow blanket (simply cut a slit in the blanket and feed the cord/light through). If you’re looking to be really creative and want to add an extra dimension to your village, you can hide books (or build shelves) to provide some height to your layout. All of your artificial landscaping is easily hidden underneath the blanket snow.

Once your village is set up, it’s time to add the Buffalo snow. Unlike the blanket snow, buffalo snow is very fluffy (like cotton balls) and gives the village the look of being covered in freshly fallen snow.

Also, if you decide to use a string of lights to add more ambience to your village (see tip#5), the layer of buffalo snow will help to hide the lights.

Finally, one of the most beautiful things about freshly fallen snow, is how the sunlight sparkles on its surface. For that extra sparkle, we use buffalo snow snowflakes. This is similar to white and silver glitter which gets sprinkled not only over the buffalo snow, but also no the trees and village roof tops.

The multiple layers of snow will give the overall impression of a winter wonderland to your North Pole series village display.

For our display, the table I use is 66″ long by 30″ deep, on which we display 8 lighted buildings and 1 accessory mountain (which occupies about the same space as a lighted house). This works out to ~1 1/2 sq ft per lighted building.

This gives us plenty of room to lay out our M&M and Gum Drop paths and distribute our elves (and other accessories) without the village looking like Rockerfeller Center when the Christmas Tree is being lit.

The Department 56 North Pole series village display combines beautifully crafted and detailed buildings, with more highly detailed (and very adorable) accessories, which should be admired from all sides. This will be even more important when they are lit up, since spreading them out will give the village a more subtle glow. If the buildings are too close together, their charm and warmth will be lost.

The value of your Department 56 North Pole series village display is more than just the beautifully crafted and detailed buildings, it also represents family memories from years past, and many years to come.

 The North Pole village is filled with all of the cottages, shops and factories you imagined existed as a child. The M&M Factory, the Gum Drop Factory, Santa’s Light Shop and many more all provide a glimpse into Santa’s magical world. Some of the North Pole village buildings are more than the intricately detailed lighted porcelain buildings that Department 56 is known for. The Gum Drop Factory has a moving conveyor belt that moves different colored gum drops from one side of the factory to the other, and the M&Ms dance around inside the M&M Factory.

 In addition to producing all of the confections of your childhood imagination, the Naughty or Nice Detective Agency is constantly on the look out to see which children are being (obviously) naughty or nice.

 Life at the North Pole however, is more than just work, work, work. There are plenty of fun things for the elves to do also. Whether its ice skating, sleigh riding, or testing the toys, there is always something fun to do at the North Pole.

 The North Pole village series also has a variety of accessories to both compliment and enhance your vision of Santa’s life at the North Pole. How about a path through the village made of M&Ms, or gum drops, or peppermint swirls? You can also get some Smores from Mrs. Claus, or peppermint sticks from some enterprising elves.

 The Department 56 North Pole Village series brings Santa’s magical world out of your imagination and into your home, where dreams and memories can be relived year after year.

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!