Old Toy Trains and Christmas Gardens

Last evening, as I headed home from work, I made a stop at Snow's Home and Garden in Orleans.


I always enjoy stopping in there to look over the latest Christmas decorations, lights and most especially, the train displays they have going this time of year. And last night, I was also on a mission, as I had heard that they had reduced prices 50%. I was looking for trees: trees of all sizes for my village under the Christmas tree at home.

I was also not above a few minutes of drooling over the Lionel Polar Express.

But I've been "jonesing" for more trees for the village for years, and try to add a couple each Christmas(there's often slim pickins by sale time)...but since getting the ranger tower (lower right above) a few years back, I've wanted more of a forest. And then we found this dusty old burl in the basement, which Owen recently brought up as a possible focus for cat scratching. However, Agent LaChat was having none of that, and after looking at it for a day or two, I realized I could transform it into a mountain in the back of the village. But I was going to need a forest of trees to help in the transformation.


As you can see, my search at Snow's was a fruitful one, as I came home with two bags full of assorted sized-trees for a grand total of about $12. And "Burl Mountain" came out pretty well, too, I think. Not only is a nice backdrop to give the village some scale, but it's big enough to completely conceal the large train that circles round.


As long as I can remember, there's been a village the Christmas tree. Usually, there was a circle of HO trains, and in my early years, just an assortment of glittered and flocked cardboard buildings.


Of course these days, the Christmas Village is big business... and I've collected an assortment of larger ceramic buildings, as well as the smaller, cardboard ones. These days, the village has suburbs...and there's talk of zoning ordinances for next year, tho this tree-planting campaign should be an improvement. It's an all evening project, laying on my belly beneath the tree, figuring out how the town will look this year.


Only recently did a friend pass on this article about the tradition of Baltimore's Christmas Gardens. Mine fits into this mold a bit, since the scale is wildly varied and by now, I've collected all sorts of little bits and pieces.

So...that was this evening's project, bringing us one day closer to the Big Day.