Christmas village is done!

It took over three hours last night to put everything together, but the village is now safely installed on my foyer shelves. The time included bundling up my husband's antique radios and safely storing them in the guest room closet shelves. That meant that the boxes from the village stuff couldn't go back in there, so I loaded them into three large trash bags and stuffed them into the closet in the garage. Just don't open that door.

Here is this year's village:

which looks suspiciously like last year's village. That's part of the trouble of using these foamcore bases to assemble the display. It's hard to vary the look. I'm thinking of making some more after Christmas, with wider bases for the shelves so there is more room. As I box each item, I'll trace its footprint onto a big roll of paper and use them to plan the layout. It'll give me a project for the winter that I can trade off with sewing. These new bases will have white fleece for snow instead of batting. I think it will glue down easier and not be as fragile. The only way to store these without the batting tearing and the whole thing disintegrating is to wrap each foamcore board in saran wrap, which feels too wasteful. I can make bags for the new ones out of tablecloth vinyl. Anyway, from my village to your home, Merry Christmas!