How to Make a Holiday Village

Ceramic village houses can be used to create holiday villages.

The tradition of displaying holiday villages dates back to the Renaissance, when families built miniature houses, nativities and other scenes to celebrate the holidays. Today, there are varieties of villages to assemble that will add enjoyment to any holiday. Whichever type of holiday village you create, follow a few basic steps when deciding on its placement and layout. With a little planning, your holiday village can be the centerpiece of your home's holiday decorations.

Things You'll Need

• Assorted boxes
• Houses
• Cotton batting
• Village houses
• Lighting
• Trees
• People
• Mirror
• Vehicles
• Benches
• Fences
• Bag of loose crafter's snow

Instructions

1. Select a location for your holiday village. Depending on the amount of space you have, you can determine the number of houses and accessories you will need. Allow about one square foot of surface space for a typical village house or display piece.

2. Arrange boxes of assorted sizes to begin your village layout. Use boxes that are large enough for a village house to sit on, and create levels to resemble natural settings such as rolling hills or mountainsides. Use the boxes the houses came in and you will not have to store them over the holidays.

3. Cover the boxes with cotton batting, draping it to soften the box edges. This will be the foundation for the village.

4. Position the houses on the foundation. Set some on the raised boxes, others on flat surfaces. Leave some open spaces for accessories.

5. Place trees in open areas of the scene. Visualize how they would appear in the real world, and duplicate the look in miniature. For example, position a row of trees behind the houses to look like a forest. Add additional trees between houses for a realistic village look. Use two or three trees of different sizes around each house, and a row of five or six larger trees for a forest background.

6. Add lighting to your scene. Use spotlights, available with village accessories, to highlight some of the buildings or areas of the scene. Set up a multi-plug outlet strip in an inconspicuous area to plug in spotlights and houses.

7. Add other miniature accessories such as people, cars, park benches and fences to the scene. Tuck a small mirror into the cotton batting as a frozen pond, and place a bench nearby. Position people in front of houses and stores, and skaters on the pond. Park vehicles or horse-drawn carriages next to buildings. Fence in a barn or front yard of a house.

8. Sprinkle the village scene with loose snowflakes.

Tips & Warnings

• Place your holiday village on a mantle or shelf, or under the tree.

• Spray twigs from the garden with flocking spray to make snow-covered bare trees.

• Use pebbles as landscaping rocks near houses or at the base of large hills to resemble boulders.

• For Halloween villages, use straw as a foundation cover and dried flowers as trees. Sprinkle miniature fall leaves on top.

• If your village houses are not illuminated, add a string of small lights before laying the batting down to bring more light to the scene. Tuck some under the houses if the light will show through, or arrange them around the base of a house for illumination, then cover with batting.

• Loose snowflakes are tiny bits of flaky, lightweight fibers that can be sprinkled over village scenes and floral arrangements to add sparkle and the look of freshly fallen snow. Loose snow is available in bags at craft stores and where village houses and accessories are sold.

References

• Family Christmas Online: A Brief History of Christmas Villages; Paul and Shelia Race
• The Home Improvement Web: Tips for Decking the Halls with Holiday Villages