A Christmas village with a touch of vintage

Once again, I'm joining the party of Vintage Christmas Mondays hosted by Joan at anything goes here.

She is having such a lovely party! I'm having a great time discovering many new blogs and peeking into the homes of so many creative people with a talent for injecting vintage touches into their decor. And I have many more to discover yet since the list of party-goers is long and I'm guilty of spending too much time plumbing archives when I find blogs I like.



This week, I thought I'd show you my little Christmas village decorated mostly with vintage objects that I found at thrift shops and antique stores.

Most of the items are vintage buys from thrift shops, but the big house which is "Santa's Workshop" is an advent calendar that I bought at a 50 percent off post-Christmas sale at a Sur la Table near my house a couple years ago. The green knitted wreath I placed above the tiny door was originally an ornament I found for 35 cents at a thrift store (the same store where I found two of the reindeer and the little blue sledding boy, who is actually an Avon perfume bottle with perfume still in it, all a bargain at 35 cents each).

My kids, ages two and four years old, are a little young to enjoy opening all the tiny drawers and compartments on the house without eventually giving way to temptation to use the advent house as a dollhouse that they throw around and break. But I still wanted them to enjoy the house, so I decided to create a little village for them with it. As it turned out, my kids enjoyed helping me put it together by shopping for items for it and putting the little pieces in place. And because they helped create it, the village has mostly stayed intact for three weeks (well, except for an incident during which they lost Santa for two days).



My two-year-old daughter gets the credit for finding these carolers with adorable freckles on their faces while shopping with me at the thrift store. I keep forgetting to put batteries inside the bottom platform to find out whether their candles will light up.

As for the wide-eyed elf watching the carolers, I fell for him at an antique shop. He seemed like he would be a good helper for Santa, who in our village scene is perched above the chimney, perhaps practicing for the big day.



Yes, that would be a Coco's sandwich toothpick attached to a tiny wooden house I found thrifting earlier this year. My family and I enjoy the occasional French toast breakfast at Coco's, so my son adored the idea of creating a tiny Coco's in our village. The cow usually lives in my kids' toy box and I've had the tiny nativity scene made in El Salvador for about a decade. Undoubtedly, my favorite part is the vintage angel watching over Baby Jesus.



At the beginning of December, I had just a few items for the village, but I was fortunate to find many of the little people and other tiny goods in the stash of Christmas items that thrift stores take out during the holiday shopping season.

Little by little, the village has come together the past few weeks, becoming the main attraction in the family room where my kids, husband and I spend most of our time.



I originally got the idea for doing a small village after seeing the above vignette at an Anthropologie store and another at a Paris-inspired tea shop.



I created the two vignettes above with containers and items I had at home, but it seems my excitement got the better of me. Next thing I knew, I was busy hunting in thrift stores for little people, ornaments and other items to create a complete village.



I found these two sweet-looking kids at two different antique stores. I couldn't pass them up and I'm glad I didn't because my daughter pretends these are "brother and sister" just like her and my son.



Here she is, saying "hi" to the villagers. In all, I would say I spent many more hours than I ever expected putting all this together, but seeing my kids' faces fill with excitement each day when we light up the village makes it all worthwhile.

Remember to visit anything goes here for more Christmas vintage fun.