Merry Christmas!

My gift for you today is the pictures of my tree and village. The village is no where any way how I want it but at least I got to unpack it and play this year. I had 2 stores and the Mayor's Mansion I couldn't fit in. Next year I'll have a full 4x8 sheet of plywood to actually construct side streets, put up the gazebo and large center-of-town Christmas tree. A few things were broken but E6000 glue is wonderful stuff.

So first, the tree:

I didn't think when I bought the lights last year that I'd purchased solid color strings instead of multi-colored and how interesting it would be trying to put them on the tree. I still managed to wrap each individual limbs but I have vertical rows of color. It's still pretty.

Then there's the village. This isn't the best shot of the village but the only way to get it all in. I have 2 book stores, quilt shop, pie shop, Dollar General, pub, Duffy's Tavern, Chinese restaurant, Lighthouse and pub, 2 toy stores (one is musical), school, church, train depot, Guns and Ammo shop and a Mountain View Lumber. We found the lumber store at Menards in Peoria the year we bought the house. Had to have it because we'd been purchasing remodeling items from Mountain View Lumber in our nearest main shopping town - Mountain View MO.

As you'll see in this next picture, there is a sledding hill. Every town should have one, right? What these kids don't know is that when the town is quiet at night, Santa's elves come down through the timber to collect the bags and bags of mail shipped into the train depot from all over the world. They trudge back through the snow with their parcels to the North Pole where Santa

waits to check the list.

Mrs. Claus directs the activities from Gingerbread Headquarters and elves spend hours in the Confectionery baking yummy treats to fill the stockings.

I hope you'll come back next year to see how the village expands.

Merry Christmas!