Christmas Trains

For anyone who enjoys Christmas, a decorated tree is basic.  Some folk like white lights and little red and green plaid bows on the tree.  Though I am a WASP, I find such trees bland and sterile.  I like colored lights and an assortment of ornaments, some new, some dating back decades, some impulse buys at the hardware store, some passed down from family members.  Though physically a decoration, the Christmas Tree becomes a statement of a family, whether the people are related or not.  One rarely gets a tree by himself or herself.  

Robin and I started dating right before Christmas of 2003.  By the time Christmas of 2004 approached, we were a couple, or as Mouse says in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, "somebody to get a Christmas tree with."  So we got a tree.  We bought some ornaments, including a set of Harry Potter broom party favors.  We were in Sullivan's Toy Store on Wisconsin Avenue looking for presents for folks when I saw a New Ray Toy Town battery powered train set.  I suggested we get a train set for our tree.  We got one.  

How it got started.

When in a CVS looking for Christmas candy, I saw a couple cheap Christmas village houses for sale.  I got a couple to add to the train set.

I thought it wold be fun to have TWO trains going around the tree, so I got another train, but realized I had to get yet ANOTHER train to have enough track so that two tracks could go around the tree.  So we had two trains going around the track, as well as some spare engines and cars.

Over the next couple years, I would check out the Christmas Village houses at CVS and buy a couple more.  Robin's sister Lori was intrigued and bought a little hash cafe house to add to the set.  I bought more train sets for more track and as the original train engines died out (they were not super quality toys, about $20 for an engine, a couple cars, and some track, but I didn't want to be a crazy HO train guy.  Dog fur from our dog Maxie and cat fur from our cat Tazzy didn't help the engine operation very much either.).  With pieces of styrofoam that resembled bridges, I made an elevated train track.  One year I found Tonka truck ornaments and took off the hook and added them to the village, sometimes supplemented with my old Matchbox vehicles I found when clearing out my parents' place when they moved into assisted living.

One year I saw a Charlie Brown Christmas battery-powered tobaggan set in a CVS, complete with music playing as Charlie, Lucy, Linus and Sally, and Snoopy circled about.  I didn't buy it but went home and asked Robin's opinion of adding it to our growing Christmas tree train village.  She thought it would be fun, but by the time I went back to the CVS, it was gone, but there was a similar Rudolf the Red-nosed reindeer set, which played the song as Rudolf, Hermey Yukon Cornelius and the Snowman slid about the ice, so I got it.  Later I saw the Charlie Brown set, so got it too.

Over the years the cats found the train sets intriguing.  Tazzy was the mighty huntress, swatting the last car of the train as it passed by.

Mr. Pud is more of a relaxed appreciator of trains.

Eventually Sullivan's Toy Store abandoned the battery train line for Thomas Train items, so I had to get replacement trains, the same brand, on ebay (sadly, Sullivan's Toy Store closed this year).  The village grew as I supplemented the display with more snow covered buildings from CVS and snow covered trees from after-Christmas sales at holiday stores.  I found a great passenger train set online in 2020 with an engine with a little headlight, and added it to the village. 

Here is a link to a video of 2020's layout, with four trains, villages, Peanuts and Rudolf.  It's the coolest layout yet, and the only one I've taken a video of.  I haven't created this year's layout yet, but it's always fun to set up the train:  like the tree and singing Christmas Eve services, it's part of Christmas.