Christmas Village

After Christmas this year we had more Christmas gifts in the china cabinet than china, and didn’t want to put any of it away until next year. The glassed-in top holds two tall snow people, gifts from my friend, Gail, a snowman, pottery Christmas trees, and three Humble figurines. The lower hutch shelf holds a Santa, red candles, a glass ornament on a stand, a Frosty the Snowman candle snuffer, my favorite Christmas book, Applause for Mrs. Clause, and a sweet bird house with a steeple on top that looks like a church.

Early mornings when I turn on the light at the top of the china cabinet, I see snow people waking up for the day. Sometimes I move the chubby snowman down beside the church, or move him over to one of the Christmas trees.  To me it’s become my very own Christmas Village with a Santa in one window, Christmas tree in the other, snow people in the middle, and a church below, waiting for Christmas Eve services. Santa could join the snowman one afternoon for some fun in the snow, or he, the snowman and children standing watch on the top shelf might all go to church together. I can almost hear them singing Christmas carols.

When my daughter was small, she kept putting her Fisher Price school bus driver in the middle of the Nativity scene in our family room. I’d move him back to the school bus, but there he would be again that afternoon, next to the camel and the sheep, or wedged in next to the manger – three wise  men and the bus driver. Since then, with AF family moves, our nativity scene fell apart and the bus driver was lost.

I never had a doll house, but love this two-story Christmas Village. My daughter, grown now, has a twelve year old son who loves Legos. I wouldn’t be surprised to one day find a Lego person standing beside the manger next to the snowman and the children. It is definitely time for a new Nativity scene at our house. For the first time I understand why my daughter kept putting the bus driver next to the manger of Jesus. Evcn at five she simply knew he needed to be there. Now I understand, too.