For many, Christmas decorations have been put away for a couple of months already, but for one Green River woman some remain up year round.
“I don’t take it down,” Barbara Lee said. “It’s just too much work.”
Lee gestured to her winter village, which has grown to take up at least a fourth of her basement.
“Some of it is Christmasy, but I think most of it is a winter village,” she said.
This winter village has grown quite a bit over the years, but with any hobby it all started out small.
“I started out with making a little village out of plastic and yarn,” Lee said.
That was 10 years ago, she said. This plastic, yarn village was made out of three-inch squares that were all sewn together with yarn. The entire village was about eight pieces with a nativity scene placed in the center. The same nativity scene still takes center stage in Lee’s winter village.
“It all fit on my coffee table upstairs, but not anymore,” Lee said.
Her hobby blossomed from there.
“I kept seeing the little figures in the store, so I decided to buy houses; all kinds of houses,” she said.
She can still remember the first piece she bought, which is now one of the main focal points. This piece showcases a frozen pond with little skaters on it. It plays music while the skaters move around the ice.
Over the years, the collection has continued to grow. At first, it all fit on a pool table. Since then, it has grown to cover two more tables, a card table and two TV trays. The village doesn’t just sit on a flat surface. Lee has added boxes in the back of the tables to make it look like some houses are tucked away in the mountains.
Unlike some collectors, Lee doesn’t care if the houses all come from the same designer. If she likes it, she buys it.
“A lot of this stuff actually came from garage sales,” Lee said. “Some of it is from Avon.”
She pointed out a church that had lights on it and a house, which was also pretty lit up to show which ones came from Avon.
“I don’t know if anyone would want to look at it or not, but I love to show it,” she said.
Lee said it has gotten harder for her to find houses to buy, but there are plenty of miniature businesses to purchase. Her winter village has all sorts of tourist shops, but it also has a Home Depot, Walmart, a nursery and bakery.
What Lee likes most about some of the houses she has picked out is just how detailed and realistic they are.
“You can look in and see people doing things,” she said.
Sure enough, peering into a couple of the houses one could see a woman baking a pie and a man reading a paper. In one of the tourist shops, there were snowboards on the walls and helmets and goggles on tables, all were for sale.
It may take a lot of batteries, but all of the street lights in Lee’s village work, so does the train that goes around her ice skating rink.
On average, Lee will add two or three houses a year. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less. It all depends on what she finds; and if her family and friends buy her things.
The winter village has regular houses, cabins, barns and farm houses, a gondola, numerous churches, businesses, a gazebo and horse-drawn carriages. There are also miniature people bustling about, some are walking from stores with packages in hands, some are making snow angels, others buying Christmas trees. It all depends on which area of the village a person looks at. There is even a red miniature phone booth.
“You could sit for hours and not see everything,” she said.
To Lee, the winter village isn’t something she changes. She will move a piece every once in a while, but for the most part everything stays put.
With so many fragile items on the tables, things do get broken sometimes. Lee said she used to have a lumber mill on the corner of the table, but it broke when she accidentally knocked it off. The gondola also broke, but that was because she used too high of wattage when she hooked it up and the motor burned out. Even though the motor burned out, she can she operate it by hand.
Lee knows this is a different hobby to have, but it is her hobby and it makes her happy.
“I just appreciate my family, friends and husband for realizing this is my thing,” she said.
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