The dickens village didn't change much this year. I've moved into the cubby hold on the left side of the fireplace now, so the village is split into two areas. The new area still needs to be filled in – it lacks sufficient buildings and definitely needs more people and other accessories. One new building was added to the new display: Cratchet's Corner.
The north pole series now occupies a series of smaller cubby holes above both of the dickens Village cubbies. This makes them much easier to see and admire than when they were under the tree. In order to do this, however, I had to drill holes between these cubbies and the big hole directly above the fireplace where the TV sits in order to bring power to all those cubbies. In once sense we're lucky – this wall of cubbies was built perfectly for displaying our villages.
These photos are not as good as previous years because we just had too much going on. I did manage to take photos before setting up or showing the whole setup in one photo. That's too bad, really. It was really the nicest setup yet!
Finally, the best thing: my wife is selling her iPad cases and purses through (among other places) a local Dept. 56 reseller. He's offering her an cash & exchange program that allows us to have credit we can use to get more buildings this coming holiday season. Looks like that new Dickens cubby will get filled up a bit more in 2011.
