With moss and summer trees, a wintry village can be transformed into a lush and green summertime display. Dickens’ houses can be used, but we found that there are more pieces from New England Village that are more suited to summer and beach side displays.
Whether placed amongst baskets or sliding out of the entertainment center, there’s always a spot for a Dept. 56 house! By elevating houses on boxes and gracefully placing cotton batting, you can achieve the illusion of houses sliding out of a cabinet.
It is hard to imagine, but Christmas decorating can extend beyond Dept. 56. Who’d have thought! There are some interesting and lovely sights to behold around the house at the holidays.
Visitors are always surprised when they slide open the linen cupboard door to reach for a towel and instead find a lighted Dept. 56 display! No room is left untouched when it comes time to spreading holiday cheer through all parts of the house.
A hatbox is the perfect stage for a holiday fantasy. In our two versions, The Olde Globe Theatre and Shakespeare’s Birthplace steal the show. We filled a decorative holiday hatbox with empty accessory boxes and topped off with a cutout round of Styrofoam to use as a platform. To finish, we sprinkled some snow and wrapped an artificial berry garland around the perimeter.
The living room fireplace is home to Dept. 56’s Dickens’ Village. Clustering houses together and at different heights with trees interspersed can add interest and depth to a display.
The kitchen sink is a riot of holiday activity with Department 56’s 12 Days of Dickens’ Village series displayed on the window niche shelves. To add to the 12 Days theme, “Ten Lords Leap” and “Nine Ladies Dance” in the handcut paper garlands that hang above the sink area. These were made from Martha Stewart templates. The shelf decorations were made out of scrapbooking paper. We cut several sizes of trees and used a hole punch to make holes in the shelf papers.
Placing houses in a wreath is a tedious task, but the results are worth it. Here, we’ve placed the original Dickens’ Village starter set houses in a large pine cone wreath. By carefully running the wires behind the wreath and up behind the streamer of ribbon, we were able to light the houses.
Sprawling your houses throughout the home creates holiday cheer in every nook and cranny. By clustering a small number of houses together, you can create an interesting display almost anywhere — on a dresser, in a basket collection, even on top of an air conditioner box as we’ve done with the Tower of London and Big Ben.
Mr. McFeely would never believe it, nor did we, for surely a gorgeous live Christmas tree via mail order could only happen in the Land of Make-Believe. But it sure does as you can have a six, seven and even eight foot Christmas tree delivered right to your back door. Here we show you how our first mail ordered seven-foot Christmas tree was delivered and decorated.
The first time we saw Martha Stewart build a gingerbread house, we knew we wanted to make one just like she did. It was a huge Second Empire mansion, unlike any other gingerbread house.








