December in Michigan

How cold is it? So cold that only 2 of us showed up for a scheduled bike ride! Dave and I rode to Belleville for breakfast and (terrible) coffee. I dressed warmer than last time and it seemed to help.

At home we are firmly into "village time". We have 4 trains this year and Lisa and Bill are both bugging me to expand into the dining room next year.... we'll see.

As it is it took days to set up. Bill and I removed the furniture and rug from the living room, hung the backdrop, laid hundreds of feet of train track and set up shelves all before Lisa came to set up the actual buildings.

The circus is new this year, created because Bill told me he had a circus train. What good is a circus train with no circus?

I painted the backdrop so we did not have to look at the back yard through the picture window behind the long shelf.

I thank my friend Christy every time I set up the scene in the fire place! She gave me the planetarium about 10 years ago.

There's a witch in front of the spooky castle this year, and Christoff, Sven, Anna and Olaf (from Frozen) are in front of the big castle.

Kind of hard to see it but there is a building "on fire" with the firefighters spraying "water" on it, in front and to the right of the working windmill.

It's a labor of love for sure, and we love it!