Snow Village 2000 Arises In The Rossi Home

By Jan Howard

A holiday tradition that began with the purchase of one miniature ceramic church building decorated for Christmas continues as a family tradition today.

A Christmas village fills what someday will again be the living room in Lucy and Joe Rossi’s Newtown home. Until then, the otherwise empty room is the perfect backdrop for the Christmas village begun by Mrs Rossi’s mother, Joanne DiFusco.

Mrs DiFusco has been collecting miniature Christmas buildings for 20 years. Several years ago she switched entirely to Department 56 miniatures.

“I started with an inexpensive village, then shifted over entirely to the Department 56 Snow Village,” Mrs DiFusco said last week. “My family always added to it.”

The beginning village houses now adorn a shelf high above the entrance foyer of the Rossi home.

Two years ago when she was downsizing, Mrs DiFusco gave her collection of Department 56 buildings and accessories to her daughter and son-in-law.

Surprisingly, however, and contrary to what you might ordinarily expect, it is not Mrs Rossi who gets caught up in the excitement of setting up the village every year.

It is Mr Rossi.

“My son-in-law said he would take care of it,” Mrs DiFusco said.

Despite its new home, the collection of ceramic buildings is still “Grandma’s village,” according to Mr and Mrs Rossi and their two daughters, Genna, 9, and Mary Joe, 4.

“It’s always been beautiful to me,” Mr Rossi said. “Lucy has had it for two years, but it’s always Grandma’s village.”

Mrs DiFusco visits with her family every year at this time to help set up the village.

“She used to set it all up by herself,” Mrs Rossi said.

Mr Rossi fashioned the two four-by-eight plywood boards supported by sawhorses on which the village sits. He painted the boards white to blend with the artificial snow used throughout the village. He also drilled the holes through which the electrical cords for the lighted buildings are dropped. The tangle of wires underneath the tables is hidden behind skirting.

It is Mr Rossi who takes the buildings and accessories out of their individual boxes each year and helps Mrs DiFusco place them in a village setting.

“We had to have two plywood boards because the train sits on one,” Mr Rossi said. Following final placement of the buildings, he adds the artificial snow that covers the entire village.

“Every year it’s different,” Mr Rossi said. “I remember going to my mother-in-law’s house, and every time I would look at it, it would be different.”

The village usually takes about two weeks to set up, he said, because they want to get all the buildings placed perfectly. This year, however, it took about a week in anticipation of a photographic session.

 “The kids are getting interested in it now,” Mr Rossi said, posing the idea of a third generation of Christmas village lovers and collectors in the future. The girls are also involved in decorating the dollhouse their Dad made for them that sits in a corner of the room.

The Snow Village Mrs DiFusco and Mr Rossi have created is beautiful and innovative. White fluffy clouds hang from the ceiling. White lights twinkle at each window and from streetlights. Small, snow-covered evergreen trees and trees devoid of leaves fill in spaces between houses, around the skating pond, and on the city streets. A plane flies above the city airport.

The village is composed of three sections. A town section on one of the two boards features, among other things, stores, hospital, fire department, city hall, gift shops, library, and an airport. A trolley runs back and forth, while a train follows a track that encircles the entire town section. A decorated Christmas tree is centered on the town green.

“The oldest thing on here is the train,” Mrs DiFusco said, surveying the colorful village scene.

A second section has a more suburban aura with residential houses, churches, and farms.

A mountain area complete with a ski lodge with smoke coming out of the chimney, skating pond, ski slope, and other attractions comprises the third area.

In all three areas, small ceramic figurines of people shop, ski, slide, and skate. Vehicles sit near houses or ply the snow-covered streets.

It is a tapestry in miniature of the winter holiday season.

Storage of the village during the non-holiday season takes a lot of attic space, Mrs DiFusco said. Mr Rossi stores it in big boxes in the basement, which he finds more convenient than the attic.

The Snow Village is dismantled every year after the holidays and packed away. It is at that time that Mrs Rossi gets involved with taking apart the large display, she said.

 “On January 2 it’s coming down,” Mrs Rossi said, which will bring to an end the holiday season for Snow Village 2000 in the Rossi home.