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Highlands Today

A Christmas Village

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

Nancy White adjusts the train in her Christmas village to demonstrate the full experience with lights and music at her home on Tuesday in Lorida.

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By JOE SEELIG

Highlands Today

Published: December 17, 2008

LORIDA - Are you dreaming of a white Christmas?

"Welcome to Christmas at the White House." These words greet all visitors before entering the enchanting winter wonderland created by Nancy and Bill White, who live beyond Lorida.

Married for 32 years, the Whites have been building and adding on to their yearly Christmas display for more than 25 years.

Everything is basically done in a Charles Dickens style, with horse-drawn carriages, small shops, and sleighs, antique street lights, and figures dressed in winter clothing.

"It takes me about two weeks to do this," said Nancy White on Tuesday as she and her friend Brenda Manus admired the hours dedicated to this labor of love.

"My husband's really good about helping me each year," she said. "I wanted a lake, my husband dug it out."

Their first Christmas villages were made with hand-crafted houses out of wood, but as it's grown, they've since built it with commercially made ceramic buildings, she said.

The Christmas village actually is sitting on top of Bill White's pride and joy, his pool table; in his pool table room, on top of several sheets of plywood and a few tables.

After running some of the wires the boards are covered in white cloth, and then the finer details and lighting is added.

"It was about three years ago I first saw it and each year it has grown and there are more houses," said Manus.

Like everyone who sees the display, Manus said she still finds something that she didn't notice before.

"It gets more elaborate," she said. "Each time it's something new. First there were two levels, now three. She seems to outdo herself each year."

Next year she wants to make some sky to cover the two walls behind the display.

White collects new pieces throughout the year from Florida to Michigan, and carefully places them into the Christmas village, which is well on its way to becoming a city.

"I'm a stickler for detail," said White. "I want everything just so. I love it. It brings out the child in me. I'm like a little kid."

But included with the fun comes a lot of pain.

"Halfway through it, I'm standing on the table, my back is hurting, and I question my sanity," White said, adding she gets Charlie-horse pains in her calves from standing between the houses on her toes while she assembles it.

Her favorite places to find Christmas village items are in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and Frankenmuth, Mich., White said.

"Whenever we go to another town we'd stop and see what they had," she said.

The village is home to a working Lionel model O-gauge railroad set reminiscent of the Polar Express, with steam engine, coal car, a Christmas-song-playing musical car, a flat-bed car loaded with Christmas trees and a caboose.

"My grandchildren have this going from morning until night when they're here," she said.

They last came to visit on Thanksgiving. That's why she begins setting the village up on Nov. 1. It stays up until about the second week of January.

"So my husband doesn't get to play pool for over two months," she said.

Next year she wants to add a passenger car, as well, so the people waiting at the train station with their suitcases have somewhere to go.

The village is broken up into different scenes around almost all of the buildings. She has more than 50 buildings set up this year. A few didn't make it to the table this year, she said.

Several of the buildings are named after family and friends. For example, there's Bill's Bait and Tackle Shop, named after her husband.

The scene is complete with ice-fishermen, and other fishing-related figurines, grounded canoes, a boat house on the side of a frozen pond, complete with skaters. Packaged fine "Buffalo" snow is everywhere. In part it covers the wires. She reuses it, but this year she bought 25 bags.

Glitter adds to the effect.

"I'm a very detail-oriented person," she said. "It's the little kid in me playing with dolls."

There's a waterfall Nancy built. No it's not real, it's made from some shiny strand-like fibers that give it an appearance of being real. At the bottom of the falls are penguins and next door is a polar bear cave. Hey, this is her fantasy land, so she can go wild.

There is a dog peeing on a hydrant and raccoons raiding a garbage can.

"I've gotta put animals in," she said. "I'm an animal lover."

Then there's Nancy's Cheese Shop named after the creator. Scott's Watch Shop, Jenny's Beauty Salon and Michelle's Florist Shop are named after their children.

Madison's Candies and Sydney's Garden Shop are named after the grandchildren.

There is Hitt's Ski School at the top of the mountain with skiers cascading down the slope.

"That's my husband's best friend; that's his last name," said White.

In addition she's got a winery, greenhouses, a police station, a firehouse, banks, churches, a school house, a Salvation Army, a Walton's and a Wal-Mart, because they're everywhere.

She bought each one, with the exception of the Caribou Coffee Shop, which was a gift and came complete with a gift certificate for the real Caribou Coffee Shop if they ever find one.

There are 70 to 80 antique working street lights that White glued one-by-one to the table surface with a hot-glue gun.

Nancy White said she'd like to make it bigger.

"I guess I could get him to knock out the wall so I can get into the bedroom, but I'll have a hard time selling that one," she said. "My husband said if it gets any bigger you're gonna have to take it to the mall."

Actually that's not a bad idea. She said she would love to set up a display like this in someone's showroom window.

She remembers from her childhood where it gets cold, in Fort Wayne, Ind.

"I grew up riding my mom's garbage can lids downhill in the snow," she said.

She caught the Christmas Village bug from her mother, who would build cruder hand-made versions of plastic stuck into wood. She thinks her mom, who died in her late 40s, would be proud of her efforts.

What does her hobby cost? She said the display really doesn't raise their electric bill.

That's great, but how much has she spent on her Christmas village?

"My husband asked me that," said White. "I told him, you don't want to know."

Anyone interested in viewing the Whites' Christmas village can call the Whites at 655-2089.

"Anybody who wants to look bring them on," she said. "All they have to do is call. Just, anyone that brings kids - make sure they don't touch."

Joe Seelig can be reached at 863-386-5834 or jseelig@highlandstoday.com

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