A Christmas tablescape with Pier 1’s Christmas village

Good morning!

I remember someone asking on their blog site – maybe it was Beth from Whispers of the Heart – whether anyone ever took two years (or more) to pull together a tablescape.  I laughed when I saw that and thought I can answer that question with a definitive yes!

In 2017, Pier 1 first came out with a line of LED paper houses.   As I remember, they offered a retro trailer and, maybe, a toy shop here in Canada at the time.  My memory is a bit fuzzy about this…  Anyway, I wondered what you would do with them at the time, and since “tablescaping” and a “blog” were not in my vocabulary then, I didn’t give it a second thought.  In 2018, though, they added a farm house and a barn, plus matching salad plates.  As soon as I saw the salad plates, I knew exactly what to do with those LED houses.  Why, a centerpiece of course.  The house, barn, and salad plates came home with me.  Shortly after, I happened across a Victorian table runner in HomeSense that seemed a good match (well except maybe for the car…).

Here I was at the beginning of November 2018.  Not sure where the salad plates are, and also not sure how I would make make a centerpiece out of two led houses…  But I knew I wanted the houses to be back to back.

I was gearing up for blog mode in late 2018, and, on impulse, I checked the Pier 1 US site (they always had more selection than the Canadian site or stores).  And lo and behold, there was a church, a green Victorian house, a pet shop and a toy shop.  After some serious deliberation with respect to exchange, duty, and shipping costs, I went ahead and ordered them.  In for a penny…

Here we are in late November 2018.  It looks like I was trying to figure out what to pair the salad plates with in this photo.  There is the Pet Shop, the green Victorian house, and the church.  Oh, and some carolers off to the right by the church.  Without wanting to spoil this tablescape, on the other side is the barn, the white farm house, and the toy shop.  Please excuse the photography.

As for figures, the carolers were from the dollar store.  I knew I needed more, but I was trying to avoid starting a Department 56 collection…  So I waited a year, hoping that the dollar store would bring in more figures for the next Christmas season.  I also wanted to see if Pier 1 would bring out any more LED houses as two more would be perfect for a table of eight.  And after that I sort of forgot about the table for awhile.

Into fall/early winter 2019, between the dollar store and Michaels Lemax collection, I was able to find the figures I needed, although animals for around the barn were in scarce supply, as I recall.   Turns out that Pier 1 did add some houses that fall, but they were pink and teal, and didn’t go with the set I already had.  I managed to to find the cafe that was part of the original Pier 1 collection on Ebay .  They also had a bakery, but it had a gold roof so I passed on it.  I was able to find another Victorian house from a company called Victorian Trading Co.

So now I’m ready to go, right?  But wait, in all this elapsed time, Helen from Entertablement has posted a Christmas tablescape with the Pier 1 LED houses and her delightful Department 56 collection.  Oh my goodness – she did a magnificent job.  I have fallen in love with the horse and carriage and since I can’t find any animals for in front of the barn – well what can I say (I did eventually find some deer).  Off to hunt down a horse and carriage.  It took until September of this year (2020) to finally track down a horse and carriage on eBay, and the only one I could find was the Department 56 one.  How ironic is that?  C’est lavie, but many thanks to Helen for the horse and carriage inspiration!

Now I can finally complete the table!  And hopefully, I’ve not spoiled everything…

Here is one end and one side of the village.  I wanted everyone at the table to have a view.

There is the barn (I really do think the horse and carriage were worth waiting for):

The toy shop, with a patient pup who waits for his master…

The white farmhouse:

And the cafe:  In the spirit of the season, Mrs. Baker is offering freshly-baked muffins to passers-by.

This is the other end and side of the village:

There is the church with all the people in front: Carolers, kids playing in the snow, and the nun and priest watching it all.

The green Victorian house:

The pet shop:

And the white Victorian house:

The one drawback from setting the houses back to back instead of staggering them is that there is no room in front of the houses for any figures or props.  They are all at the ends.

The mail box was chosen because of the cat.  Must have a least one kitty in the village…

The bird house and bath together with a sweet bunny.

Oh, and it looks like the raccoons have gotten into the garbage.  Tsk tsk.  (Love the apple core).

I kept the place settings fairly simple.  For the plate stack I have the salad plates featuring the barn and farmhouse set on top of ivory Mikasa dinner plates.  I’ve again used my Walmart sparkly charger plates.  Who knew how handy they would become?

The creamy white napkins with mini edged pom poms are from my favorite kitchen store in Invermere, B.C., several years ago now when I was visiting with my sister and BIL.  Simple red jingle bell napkin rings encase them.

I’ve left the stemware off in most of the photos as they obscure the details of the houses.  I added my Waterford wine glasses and liqueur glasses for the lighted night view.

As daylight started to fade, the village lights began to come on.

Its completely dark now, but look!  Santa and his reindeer have landed near the barn!

And so…

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Sharing with Between Naps on the Porch.  All comments are most welcome and much appreciated.