Xmas Village Display Ideas

Setting up your Christmas village display is a wonderful way to spend quality time with your family this holiday season. Everyone will love getting their chance to help create a DIY holiday scene at home, and it could even become a family tradition.

With animated and lighted pieces and figurines, you could create a country Christmas scene complete with a church that lights up, a Christmas village tree, a snowman and even children skating on a pond.

Create your miniature winter wonderland with these tips.

A glass top table with a level platform beneath the glass displays Christmas scenes beautifully. There are many Christmas village pieces that can be displayed from any angle, including animated skating rinks and moving trains, and these could be part of a display you create under the glass on your glass top table. A solid base beneath the glass serves as the display stand. This is a different way to show off some of your beautiful Christmas village pieces, and will be a holiday conversation piece.

A lighted curio cabinet can spotlight your own Christmas village collection. You can use the different levels of the cabinet to set up different scenes within your village. Simply remove the items already in your curio cabinet and replace them with your Christmas village during the Christmas season.

This also gives you the chance to dust and clean your curio cabinet if you have neglected to do so for a while. If you do not already have a curio cabinet and you have the room for one, then consider picking up a used cabinet and putting it to good use during the holidays and all year long.

Shelving units, whether they're installed on a wall or simply stand-alone bookshelves, can be used for displaying your Christmas village pieces. Plain wooden shelves are inexpensive enough that you could purchase and use them just for your Christmas villages, and they can be easily stored in any garage or basement during the rest of the year. They also come in handy for other Christmas decorating ideas, such as hanging stockings and garlands on them.

Under the Christmas tree or on the fireplace mantel are traditional locations for showcasing a Christmas village display, but you can also get creative with where you set up your display. Many houses have basement windows that can be seen from the outside that are at eye level. A Christmas village, especially one that lights up, would be add an interesting touch to a basement or garage window as well as a way to show off some of your Christmas village pieces to people in the neighborhood. Christmas lights framing the window make the display even more appealing.

To set up these displays safely in the window, use display tables. A garage or basement window will typically require a high table for the display to be seen. If the windows have windowsills, you can use them to set up your displays as long as they are wide enough to support the pieces. Many basement walls are thick with larger windowsills; these could help you display your village pieces. A nativity scene or a faux gingerbread house may also look nice displayed in a window where it is visible to passersby.

Try to have some kind of central idea on which to base your display. Keeping a village display limited to one kind of Christmas scene can make it easier to develop, as stringing together unrelated pieces can lack cohesiveness can ruin the visual impact of your display. Instead of using all of your village pieces in one big display, try breaking them up into scenes and displaying them in different parts of the house.

Fake snow adds a realistic touch beneath your village display. Choose one key piece, such as an illuminated church with steeple, as the centerpiece, and use smaller elements around it. The key is to have fun creating your mini villages each year, and as you enjoy the process, others enjoy your efforts.