Department 56 Villagers: Celebrating 20 Years with Cakes and Displays

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday, Dear Villagers,

Happy birthday to you!

Department 56 Villagers of Central Pennsylvania

Dept. 56 Villagers of Central Pennsylvania,
20th Anniversary Cake,
Created by Gina Aiello

The Dept. 56 Villagers of Central Pennsylvania are celebrating, as well they should:  Twenty years as a club, and they are going strong!  In fact, at every meeting this year the club is celebrating with special birthday cakes, like the one to the right, created by member Gina Aiello.  The cake's cottage, with its rough-hewn roof, paved path, and near-by doghouse is very appropriate for a village collecting club.

Created by Lottie Clinedinst

During the September meeting the club held a display contest that demonstrated the diversity and creativity of Department 56 collecting.  This display, created by Lottie Clinedinst, is a Halloween piece appropriately placed in a witch's cauldron.  Bubble, bubble, trouble.....  The display features the Dept. 56 Snow Village Halloween "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" (which can describe any number of us at our ages!)  Also included are Adams Family-like characters from "Bats in my Belfry," a delicious piece.  Note the lovely eyeball tree (all the better to see you with, my dear...) and the car with pumpkin hubcaps!

Created by Peg and Sam Samsak

The Department 56 Snow Village Halloween's "Haunted Mansion," introduced in  1998, anchors this halloween display, complete with a horseman carrying his pumpkin head.  Peg and Sam Samsak created this piece, which includes "A Vampire's Best Friend," who is walking his vamp, or is the vamp flying his crow?   The scene is set on a quilted pumpkin and another quilt provides the front-drop, while the candied corn invites the viewer in for a closer look.

"Auf zum Oktoberfest,"
Created by Margaret Grundig

Nothing says "autumn" like Oktoberfest, and nothing says "Oktoberfest" like this display created by Margaret Grundig!  The Kukuck Uhren, "Clock Shop," on the left, has such a distinctive Alpine roofline, steep and swooping so that snow slides off.  By the way, the name Kukuck is a play on the work Kuckucks, which means cuckoo in German.  So, change just a few letters, and  the building's name "Clock Shop" becomes "Cuckoo Clocks."  The building on the right is the Besson Bierkeller.  Note the regional flags over the Bierkeller's entrance.  The blue and white one is very similar to that of Zurich.  The scene is complete with an Oompapa band, steins of beer, and a stork on the roof!

Created by Mary Lou Evans

Mary Lou Evans was the creator of the festive "Pin Trader Shop," which is festooned with dozens of trading pins that lie on the table, flow up the steps, and spill into the floral arrangement behind.   Do you recognize any of the pins?  How about the Village Express Event Pin that is on the green bench?  Or the Nicholas Nickleby pin on the far right just above the date stamp?  One of my favorite parts of this arrangement is the fall floral spray that transforms a Christmas building into one for autumn.  The yellow berries in the flower arrangement pick up the yellow of the dormer windows, and the green in the arrangement picks up the pine swag draped on the second story of the building, along with the everygreen trees in the front.  Even the building's roof colors are picked up in the display.

Created by Gina Aiello

This Fall Scene, created by Gina Aiello, features the Dickens Village "Hedgerow Garden Cottage."  Fall is in the air, leaves are dropping from the trees, and pumpkins are ripe.  The city lamplighter is lighting the gas lamps earlier, since the days are shorter.  This is good, because whoever drives that good-looking car may need light to walk along the brick path, through the ornate wrought iron fence, past the dog, and onto the porch of this friendly cottage.




Thanks to Mary Lou Evans for providing me these wonderful pictures of the cakes and the displays, along with a list of  their creators.  We hope the Department 56 Villagers continue to have fabulous and tasty 20th anniversary celebrations!

Department 56 Villagers Birthday Cake,

Provided by Kathy and Jim Seker