Creating a Christmas Village: The Best Tips and Guide

Christmas villages are a fun holiday task. It takes years to create a large Christmas village, but part of the fun is buying new pieces and getting family and friends to help put it together.

One year for Christmas, when I was maybe eight or nine years old, I wanted to buy my mom a light up Christmas village house. I thought it was pretty and knew she would like it, so my dad let me get it for her. That next Christmas, it sat out with the rest of the decorations. Somehow, and for some reason unknown, my family started buying more Christmas village pieces to go with that house.

Years later, we now take a full day to put out our Christmas village and it takes up the entire dining room.

Creating a Christmas village became almost an obsession with my sister, and every year she would buy new pieces. Also, family and friends would present her with more houses and accessories because they knew she loved her Christmas village. Even when we say that we will no longer buy any more pieces, we see something in the store and just have to have it.

If you are interested in starting a Christmas village, or if you have one already but want to expand it, then here are some tips and ideas from a village creator who has done this for years.

Use these photos of our Christmas village to help you along: Creating a Christmas Village: A Photo Guide

Christmas village brands or themes

When you go into any department store during Christmastime(or Halloween time it seems) you will find a lot of village pieces. Many of the stores stock a certain brand and every year they have something new to keep your Christmas village growing. You can find a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer village, or a Coca-Cola village, as well as your typical Victorian or Dickens village pieces.

Department 56 is one of the best places to find Christmas village pieces. They have themes that include cities, country, Victorian, Dickens and all eras in-between. They even have whimsical themes like Santa's Workshop with elves and penguins.

The Village Peddler sells Department 56 items as well as many others. It is another good place to check out. They even sell a spooky Halloween village!

Department 56 and The Village Peddler are pretty high priced for something you will only have on display for a short time, but they are a great place to look at for ideas. Department 56 provides decorating ideas, as well as selling their goods.

Buy your Christmas village pieces at department stores. You will find many of the same pieces but at a fraction of the cost.

The Christmas village display area

If you are just starting out, your Christmas village could be on a countertop, mantel, or coffee table. Use any flat surface that will not be disturbed by pets or children. My cats like to sleep in the middle of the Christmas village at night when we cannot see them.

As you get more pieces and your village grows, it might be necessary to build or buy tables. Your Christmas village does not need to be a square shape, and it does not need to be all the same level, either. My family uses an old buffet table, and next to that, we have a long wooden table we built. They are placed against the wall in our dining room. It is shaped like an L. Eventually, we had to add our dining room table to the mix, and even though it is lower than the buffet and the wooden table, we shove it up alongside them and use it as our town square.

Wherever you decide to place your Christmas village, make sure it is near as many electrical outlets are possible. Some Christmas village pieces use batteries to light up, while others need to be plugged in. There are display pieces that move or play music as well. Use 6 outlet(or more) power surge protectors for extras.

If you are worried about having so many pieces plugged in at once, then do not light up your display all the time. Maybe for a little while at night, and whenever friends or family are over to admire it. The Christmas village will look just as beautiful during the day, without being lit up.

Must-have Christmas village display pieces

When just starting out, buy a few houses and buildings. Do not forget people too! As your Christmas village grows, here are some pieces and displays that you should have:

Water:

You can buy plastic sheets of translucent "water" at department stores. To start out, just use blue material. Place the water at the very edge of your display area so that it gives the illusion that the water continues, like the sea or ocean.

Sky:

Use a dark blue material and hang it behind your display tables. It will create a sky for your Christmas village instead of your painted or wall-papered wall.

Train:

Every Christmas village needs a running train. You can buy trains in department stores with all the other Christmas village pieces. Or, you can buy one from the children's section any time of the year. Just make sure it is small enough to match your buildings. Do not buy a train that is taller than your houses or smaller than your people.

Roads:

At stores, roads come in rolled up sheets. You can find brick roads, stone roads, or regular asphalt. Mix it up, and use them all, if you want. The sheets are not very long, so you might have to buy a number of them.

Trees, trees, trees:

These are a staple in a Christmas village, and are abundant in the stores. For towns, you can find trees like you see on the side of the streets, their leaves fallen and their branches covered in snow. Pine trees are a big find for Christmas villages, too. Small ones, huge ones, and even some already decorated for Christmas complete with flickering lights.

Frozen lakes:

You can buy plastic lakes that are silvery and shiny. It is wintertime and the waters are frozen and perfect for ice skating.

Hills and/or mountains:

Finding foam mountains is a little harder. Department stores do not stock them as readily as every other piece. However, no land is perfectly flat, especially not a land filled with snow and pine trees. Get your hands on some snow covered mountains, or use some of the tricks I have learned. You can find them in the next section, tips and tricks.

Lights:

Street lamps for your towns are a must. They come in many different designs and light up with batteries. You can find street lights for your roads, or crosswalks, depending on the time period you are going for.

String lights are available too, although many houses and trees already come decorated since the scene is supposed to be Christmas. With string lights, you can place them anywhere you want, and they, too, light up with batteries.

Buildings:

Without buildings, there is no Christmas village, obviously. Some pieces you should start out with are a school, church, stores of any kind, houses for your people to live in, post office for sending Santa his letters, and maybe a fire department.

There are many, many different buildings you can find. Some pieces are made for small town, country life, while others are for cities. Figure out which one you want to start with and then expand to the others. Have your city that merges into a town that becomes country wilderness. Yes, this takes space, and time, so be prepared for that.

Use old and new buildings in your Christmas village. So what if you have an old building that does not fit with your new city theme? Many cities have those old buildings, kept preserved for historical purposes. Your old building would be just that.

Keep your collection growing every year.

People:

You have to have people in your Christmas village! Your stores will have people of all ages and occupations and so you will never run out of something new. Make sure you have kids for your school, ice skaters on your lakes, shoppers with packages, carolers outside someone's door, and workers shoveling the driveway. One of the best pieces I have ever seen was of three nuns having a snowball fight!

If you buy your people pieces from different brands just make sure they are the same size. You cannot have kids taller than the adults, and adults taller than the buildings.

Animals:

Animals are an important part of a realistic village. Place cats and dogs within your town. There is an amusing piece with raccoons inside garbage cans that is perfect for cityscapes. In the country setting, use deer, squirrels, and rabbits. Like with people, just make sure your animal pieces are the right size. We had a squirrel in our Christmas village that was bigger than our deer once.

Tips and tricks for the ultimate Christmas village

White sheets:

Use cheap white sheets to cover your display tables for your Christmas village. Make sure there are two layers by either folding the sheets or using one on top of another. The white will look like packed down snow, but the best reason for using sheets is for your electric cords.

After placing a Christmas village piece where you want it, cut a small slit in the top layer of the sheet. Slip the cord through and pull it down to your outlet. This hides the cord from sight!

Tape the cords down beneath the sheet to help keep them flat.

Cotton stuffing:

Cotton stuffing is perfect for snow. It is cheap and abundant. Usually, in department stores, you find small bags of "snow" for your Christmas village. These pieces are small and are not recommended if you have pets or children that might try to eat them. Not only that, but the slightest breeze will send the pieces flying to your floor and you will be constantly vacuuming them up.

Use stuffing. For pieces that use batteries, you can pile the stuffing over the box that holds the battery to keep it hidden. Place those boxes behind houses and pile the snow over them. It just looks like giant snow piles.

Do the snow last, once every piece of your village has been placed. Make sure you fill in the alleyways between buildings, and around all the trees. Put some on top of trees that do not have snow on them already. Place snow wherever there should be snow.

Back roads:

Buying roads can add up, and cost a number of pennies. The pieces are small and you would have to buy many pieces to fill in all your roads. That is, unless you make some country back roads. To do that, just do not put anything there. Line the roads with cotton stuffing in the shape of a road. The white sheet will look like a road that has not been plowed and the snow has been packed down from cars.

Train first:

Figure out where to put your train before anything else. That way the area is completely flat and you can mess with the train tracks until the path is exactly how you want it. Set up the train and let it ride to test it out. Then you can begin placing buildings around the train.

Double-sided tape:

Many of the accessory pieces are small and lightweight. Use double-sided tape to keep them standing up straight. Surround the bottoms of the pieces in cotton stuffing to help a little as well.

Hills:

Buying hills and mountains can be costly, and certainly not something you need to worry about having right from the beginning. However, if you want your Christmas village to look more realistic, then you need some hills. Create them using bowls of different sizes. Place the bowls face down where you want them, and cover them with the white sheet. Smaller bowls are great for hills with a few trees on them, and larger bowls are perfect for cabins or even Santa's workshop.

Frozen sea:

If you create a sea or ocean, like I mentioned before, then here's a neat trick: Your sheet will cover the edge of your water and that will not look much like a shoreline. Buy some of those plastic stones that are used in vases as water for fake flowers. Use dark blue, light blue, and/or white. Tape them in a row along where the water and the sheet meet. It will look a frozen shoreline that becomes an open sea.

Lakes and ponds:

If you do not want to buy plastic lakes, use round mirrors. Personally, I think the reflection from the mirror looks ten times better than the blurry reflection from cheap plastic water. Surround the mirrors with cotton stuffing to hide the edges, because no pond is perfectly round.

Have fun and be whimsical

Mix your Christmas village brands, and have no fear of it. Place Santa's house on a hill, or have him flying over the village. Use cars in the town, and horse drawn sleighs in the country. If you find a piece in the store that you love but do not think it fits your design, buy it anyway. Almost anything will work if you want it to. It is your Christmas village after all, and your imagination that creates it and makes it real.

My family's Christmas village started out with just one small yellow house. The piece is still used every year, given a special spot among the rest. All it takes is one house, and before long, you will have created a Christmas world all your own.