Father-Husband-Marketer-Geek

This is my first crack at a mapping tool. I've placed all of the shop locations on one Google Map, making it easy to find shops in an area. Some of the placetags contain web addresses and street-level photos of the shops if you click on them or zoom in. There's a lot more I can do with this. It's only the beginning. Next I will figure out how to plot out a road trip with this. I know you can get directions if you go to the Department 56 Shop Google Map itself. A blog-friendly version of the map has been placed just below the blog posts.

My wife and I discovered a shop in Granby, CT (yes, I grew up there and never visited this place!). Once we stepped into the shop, we knew it would be a place where we will return during the holidays. They have some wonderful displays set up. The rest of the village shops have a "country store" feel to them, where you could find anything you might not expect to find there. They also have a furniture shop. I took some photos of the displays: You can find them off of Rt. 10 and 202 in Granby, CT at the Mechanicsville Road intersection. Click here for the website: The Christmas Shop at Old Mill Pond Village. The phone number is 860-653-3343.

"The Emporium Gallery at 3358 West 26th St. in Erie, Pennsylvania . They are a Showcase Dealer, with a complete room devoted to D 56 Villages. Ask for Audrey or Henry." "Rich, There is a fantastic shop in Winston Salem, North Carolina which has villages out year round in a nice large room with full displays. They carry every line of villages: original snow village, halloween village, dickens, christmas in city, alpine, north pole, new england as well as side line villages such as carnival, wizard of oz, peanuts, winnie the pooh The two "regular gals" that work there, Kathy and Laura, are truly spectacular as well. The shop is Salem Creek and it's on 694 Hanes Mall Blvd. I encourage everyone in the general area who are into villages to give them a look. By the way, they have a great Christmas in July sale coming towards the end of July with all their retired villages on sale." " The Christmas Place in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee is a huge Chr

Another Yahoo! Groups villager suggested San Jose Collectibles at 4602 Meridian Ave in San Jose, California . Now, to the idea: One of the posts mentioned plotting all the shops on a map and making this available to the public as a tool for planning a road trip. I think that's an amazing idea. I think it can be done with Google Maps . If we can gather an up to date list (database) of shops to visit, I'll try and create the tool. I know Department56.com has a store locator tool but many in the group said it's a bit out of date with some bad records. Might be a good place to start, though. I wonder if they'll share the database, if in turn, I shared the resulting "Village Display Road Trip" tool with them? Maybe someone knows of such a tool?

I belong to the Yahoo! Group for Department 56. It's a great group of knowledgeable villagers. I posted the following question to the group: "What are the best local shops in your state?" I was hoping to get some good answers that I could then post about, and I wasn't disappointed. The following are some of the excerpts and I will eventually post about each of their nominated shops: "I'm in New Jersey near Cherry Hill but I don't care for the shops around here. I love Amato's Garden Center in Monmouth Junction.it's about an hour but a nice drive." "Our favorite shop in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Presence Gift Shop is on 422 Hartz Avenue in Danville, California . The owners are Kit and Debbie. They carry the full line of D56 Villages" "The Village Shoppes in New Carlisle, Indiana , at 129 E. Michigan St. has 27,000 sq. ft. of accessories, furniture, gifts, and collectibles. They carry the full line of D56. Just 20 minute

Thanks to a post from a reader the shop has been identified as "The Christmas House" in Elmira, New York. It's a really nice shop and I will feature it here soon. Just wanted to get this out and say thank you to Julie.

I've looked in every physical store in CT and even one in upstate New York, but I haven't been able to find the original Department 56 Yankee Stadium piece -- I see it's on Ebay, but I'd like to find a discounted sale on the piece, of course! This one I'm looking for is from Christmas in the City and it's much larger than the current accent pieces that are being sold. Speaking of the upstate New York store, I can't remember the name of the store, but it was one of the nicer ones I've visited. They had some spectacular displays, especially the Original Snow Village Halloween display. It was halfway from Hartford to Buffalo. I'll dig more into Google and try to remember the city. I recall they had a large billboard on the highway and that was what made us stop by. I'm due to return to upstate New York possibly in October, so I'd love to get some recommendations for Department 56 shops to visit on my way. We go up to Olean, NY, to spend time

The Satin Button is an online store that was introduced to me by the owner, Kristin Singhasemanon. The store carries Department 56 , Department 56 Krinkles , Department 56 classic brands and other holiday gifts. Her Department 56 sales are located on her specials page. She sent me a detailed description of her store, but I found a personal note on the website itself that evoked a nice summary of the store's intent (copied in full): "As a little girl, the holidays were always filled with charm and enchantment. To my family, the holidays were something to be cherished. Most little girls experience their own form of magic at Christmastime. What was different in our house was that every holiday was magical. On Valentine's Day, our dinner table became the site of a little game of hide-and-seek to find special messages and treats from Mom. Throughout the year, we colored Easter eggs, carved pumpkins and made our own Christmas ornaments. My mother shared her passion for celeb

- D56 shop profiles - D56 online store profiles - D56 special sales - D56 inventory clearance sales - D56 product information - D56 collector profiles - D56 display photos - D56 in other media - misc. Christmas-oriented info - useful tools for D56 collectors If anyone has anything to contribute on any of the above topics or related areas, please feel free to comment below. If you are a shop owner, or online store owner, you'll certainly want to get a link in the sidebar "Department 56 Resources" section, which will eventually be categorized. It certainly won't hurt the organic search engine marketing efforts of your websites.

One of my best ideas ever was for Department 56 to make mini-movies set in their villages for scenery. They could make them stop-motion animated, like the holiday classics (pre-CGI) such as "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (speaking of which, I will post my top ten holiday classics later in the year!). For example, you could have an "Original Snow Village" movie featuring characters who live in the village, with the buildings and accessories as scenery. Expanding on this idea, why aren't there more D56 product placement in movies? Some of the village displays I've seen are downright cinematic.

If you ever get the chance, take a trek up to Willimantic, CT to visit a place that I've labeled "Yankee Candle East". They have some of the most elaborate village displays of any of the stores I've been to. Each and every village is set up behind a glass display. We once headed up there on a friday evening, and we were not dissapointed. I could tell my wife was impressed (not easy!). We were pushing the closing hour and Dave, the owner, was kind enough to let us stay. He even gave us a tour and showed some new rooms and product lines. He had an original model of a building, before it had been cast and painted, from Department 56. Dave said the company often visits his store. You can click here to visit the G and L Christmas Barn self-maintained website which features Department 56, Lenox, Yankee Candle, and many other holiday collectibles.

In searching for Department56 sites to exchange links with, and to feature on this blog, I came across VillageObsession.com . It caught my eye because of the useful content it featured, mainly the how-to guides . It's ironic, because I am going to be attempting to build a large scale landscape for my Original Snow Village collection. Check it out and post comments with links to other sites that may be of help!

I thought it would be useful to include a quick, always-updated list of department 56 search results from Craigslist . These search results will always be fresh, so bookmark this post in particular to have fast access to it. Best thing about it, it searches all regions, so it's not limited to one particular city. The feed format is not perfect yet, but I'll continue to tweak:

Earlier this year I decided that everyone in my family is going to get Department 56 village buildings and accessories for both their birthdays and christmas. Not only does it help us to easily find gifts for them, it also allows us to pair the right village series with the right people. You can usually find individual items that will have special meaning to each person also. I selected New England Village for one of my nieces - starting out with the farm animals accessory. She loved it and asked me if there were other pieces for the village. She said she always wanted to collect a village. I was so happy that I spoiled a surprise - I told her along with her christmas present she's going to get a printout of all the pieces available in her village. There we go, another villager born! My wife and I collect Snow Village Halloween , the Original Snow Village , and the A Christmas Story series. My brother and his wife are slated to begin receiving the Dickens' Village A Christm

A friend of mine and I were speaking the other day, and we were discussing his new home he had built. He said he had the perfect spot for a large tree (somehow our conversations always come around to christmas or baseball). We then both immediately mentioned how we had to find a new tree farm to visit. It had been a tradition for us to go to Wrights' Mill Tree Farm in Canterbury, CT, and select the biggest tree on the lot. This was back when a group of friends lived together in a rented house and we'd hoist the tree up on the front lawn. It was quite a good time (the owner of the tree farm liked to offer brandy to his customers on very cold days.). Wrights' Mill closed a few years ago, the culmination of growing too much beyond their tree-selling roots and opening up a too-large wedding facility. The owner eventually sold out and all that is left is the wedding facility, unfortunately. The farm was a historical landmark, with acres of trees and old mills interspersed. The w

Last week I found "Roadside Billboards", a set of 3 billboards for Snow Village. It was on sale for $ 20. I thought they would look good nearby my diners and the Stardust movie theater. They have a real retro feel to them. They include signage for: Campbell's Soup Dutch Boy Paints Eveready Batteries I also have the Campbell's Soup stand, so that will go well with these.

I admit it, I'm obsessed with Department 56. I've always loved the village displays at Yankee Candle in Deerfield, MA. That's where it started. From Christmas in the City, to Dickens' Village, to the original Snow Village and the whimsical North Pole village, they struck a chord with me, reminding me of how I've loved Christmas since I was a child. When I first met my wife, she wasn't a Christmas nut like I am. She didn't think much of these expensive ceramic buildings either. She did, however, like Halloween, and so that's where it started. We both dove into collecting the original Snow Village Halloween set. We eventually built an amusement park-themed display, featuring the scaredy cat ferris wheel, spinning pumpkins, mummy carousel and more. She had her set, now it was time for me to select the one I was going to collect. With a love of the movie, " A Christmas Story ", when we spotted a set of buildings and accessories from Department 56

I am pleased to release this new blog. We will feature articles on Department 56 villages , news, listings that are ending soon on Ebay , photos from collectors, links to retailers, hobbyists and more. I think the feature with the highest value on this site are the feeds on the Department 56 village listings from Ebay. They are all right here, by village category, sorted by ending soonest. No need to go to Ebay itself and search. I'll be adding more and more features for different types of Ebay searches and eventually I will add some other sites like Craigslist databases of listings and such. For now, please comment, browse, visit our featured resources, and send in your pictures and stories!