Village Landlords' Anniversary Celebrations: Bill and Debbie King's Open House and the Landlords' Halloween Display Competition

Village Landlords of the Ft. Lauderdale Area
20th Anniversary Cake, 2011

The Village Landlords of the Fort Lauderdale area have been busy celebrating 20 years as a collectors club,  and they have been celebrating in fine fashion.  Members Debbie and Bill King hosted a gala open house for club members,  and then the Landlords had a Halloween display contest with 14 of their members participating.  Here's how the festivities played out!

Debbie and Bill King of the
Village Landlords of Ft. Lauderdale, FL

According to Jerry Fernon, Program Chairman for the Village Landlords, Bill and Debbie King's Open Houses are always very well attended, because they go the extra mile to provide great food and fabulous village displays.  The 20th Anniversary Halloween Spectacular was no exception.

Created by Bill and Debbie King

With as many as 12 different Halloween displays, the Kings demonstrated their imagination and creativity.  Here are just a few of my favorites.  First, there was the Snow Village Halloween's "Helga's House of Fortunes," featuring Helga herself as a commanding presence over the display.  Anyone who wants to join Helga this Halloween can get a hat and cape at the "Costumes for Sale" shop.   Do you see "Madame Zelda at Work," on the left of the display?  Nice tree, too.

Created by Bill and Debbie King

Another great display, among many, was the suitably creepy "Dead Creek Mill," which featured not only the limited collector's edition building of the Snow Village Halloween series, but the "Dead Creek Mill Delivery," the creepy car crash.  Notice the abominable slime man in front of the mill.  On the right, one skeleton takes a break with his foot resting on a pumpkin.  Only he would be that comfortable here.

Created by Bill and Debbie King

The "Ghoul School" has all the elements of Halloween.  The school is appropriately dilapidated, and the "Little Ghouls' Field Trip" features the teacher leading the rather idiosyncratic students along, clinging to a rope. On the right is the "Spooky Farmhouse," with the American Gothic derivative farmers, with a warning, "Strangers Beware."

Created by Bill and Debbie King

While the Kings made many more displays, I am going to feature just one more here:  the homage to a Mickey Mouse Halloween.  Of course, the Kings included "Mickey's Haunted House," but they topped it with Mickey pumpkin ears!  Even better, they carved a Mickey-o-Lantern, and added Pluto wearing a pirate's hat and carrying a pumpkin to hold trick-or-treats.  There are just so many more details....

Required items for the Village Landlords
competition displays, assembled by Jerry Fernon

The Village Landlords club also celebrated their anniversary with a display competition.  Jerry Fernon, the Program Director for the club, asked members to create display vignettes about 12" X 12" in size (or just a little larger) using whatever buildings, accessories and materials they wished, as long as they also included some specific items, which Jerry provided to participants:  two skeletons, a coffin, fencing, a cauldron, apples, and white material that looks like either ice or water.

The response was overwhelming.  Fourteen displays were completed and entered into the contest!

First Place, Village Landlords
Halloween Display Competition,
Created by Susan Roberts

...And the winner was Susan Roberts! Her imaginative display included a really scary tree covered with dried Spanish moss and embellished with pumpkins, bats, a witch's hat and broom, and a hissing black cat.  Suspended from a limb is a tire, in which is ghost is swinging.  Notice the snake starting to slither down the rope!  Something creepy, maybe a gecko, is crawling over the coffin coming out from behind the tree.  The requisite skeletons are there, along with a cyclopean monster and a werewolf. A ghoulishly great piece, worthy of first place.

Tie for Second Place, Village Landlords Halloween Display Competition,
Created by Gisela Suarez

There was a tie for second place between Gisela Suarez and Mei-Hua Paige.  Gisela's display is shown above, a graveyard scene outside a spooky house.  The two skeletons are soaking in spas containing the required "water" element; one is using the cauldron for a spa, and the other is relaxing in a coffin hot tub!  Their guest, a skeleton "hottie" herself, is sitting nearby, dressed in Halloween finery.  One of my favorite details is the half-buried skelton in the center of the yard.  I also like the top window, where you can see the feet of someone that must be dangling from a rafter inside.  I don't think he is holding on to the rope with his hands!!  Netting surrounds the whole display, the required fence is in front, and creepy cobwebby tree branches overhang the scene. Scary Skeleton fun.

Tie for Second Place, Village Landlords Halloween Display Competition,
Created by Mei-Hua Paige.

Mei-Hua entered a humorous Halloween display that tied with Gisela for second place.  The center of her display was a totem-like skull, which is bleeding through a gash in its head, and out of its eyes, nose, and mouth.  The skull is producing so much blood, in fact, that it is pooling on the rocks and dripping down.....ooooohhhhh.  A gargoyle is perched on the skull, and to either side are skeleton candelabra.  The two required skeletons are bobbing for apples in the cauldron, a amusing touch.  Another skeleton is bursting out of the coffin, and, very creepily, a fourth skeleton has been jammed uncomfortably into a coffin the graveyard. A series of "candles" and gargoyles delineates the perimeter of the lava-looking base.

Happy Anniversary to the Village Landlords!  Congratulations to Bill and Debbie King for their popular and successful Open House, and to all the participants in the display contest, particularly Susan Roberts, Gisela Suarez and Mei-Hua Paige.  Finally, thanks to Jerry Fernon for providing the information and pictures.

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