We have yet to know if I will survive the unpacking of the Christmas Village at my mother’s house this year. The thing doesn’t belong to her and its annual erection is met with the fixed smile she gets when the doctor advises an unpleasant medical treatment. The Sharer, who hasn’t got the room for the full display at her place, doesn’t notice this or perhaps sees it as an effusion of pleasure.
Some of you will know that the Village itself isn’t the problem. Not exactly. The thing goes up a lot easier than it comes down and it seems to get put away later every year. Last year I finally packed it up just before Martin Luther King day. The furor then endured is, I’m afraid, going to be mild compared to how it’s going to go in the all too near future. Like towels folding it’s clear that no two people pack away a Christmas village the same way. It has the feel of the kind of disagreement that leads to violence. Lord help me if a chip is seen.
Perhaps real CVers don’t feel an inverse proportion of charm as the thing grows ever bigger. And it does grow bigger with every post-Christmas sale. I’m told that as displays go it’s in the middle range, covering only three long tables and a bench, all covered with white poly-fill snow and complex wiring. I’m told that this years great innovation will be LEDs, more of them than ever since they’re energy efficient.
So I sit here waiting for the call complaining that I’m a vandal, threats of legal action, who knows what else. Maybe as an alternative to the tedious and ubiquitous, lazy-assed Christmas season pieces about who and how much to tip, the deep pocketed etiquette police could come up with rules governing when and who takes the thing down.