Father-Husband-Marketer-Geek

Thanks to my friends at the Original Department 56 Yahoo Discussion Group and Village D-Lights magazine, we have the names of the new pieces coming out (once we get hold of some pics, we'll post them): "Polar Bear Palace" from the North Pole Series "The Gingerbread House" from the "Christmas Lane" subset of the Snow Village Series "Barrow Manor" for Dickens' Village "The Regal Ballroom" from the Christmas in the City Series "Scarecrow Harvest Festival" from the Fall Harvest Series of Snow Village "Rondel Cottage" of New England Village "Castle Wolfstein" representing the Alpine Series. Apparently the new 'stuff' will be on the Dept 56 web site on December 17.

Every now and then it's fun to just create new ideas, and with Halloween approaching, I thought it would be fun to come up with a few new buildings and accessories for Snow Village Halloween, so here goes: * "Smoky Bones Crematorium" (my wife actually came up with this idea - most likely the best one!): this building would have a few animated features: smoke coming out of the chimney, and a casket being pulled into one of the doors. The casket would slide in and out, slowly. * "Dead Letter Office" - would feature an eerie abandoned post office with a strangely lit window scene sneaking a peak at piles of unopened letters. This would be complimented by an accessory called "Skeletal Delivery" featuring a broken down mail truck and a skeleton postal worker. * "Haunted Trolley Museum" - this would be a larger scene with 3 or 4 abandoned trolley cars, spooky lighting, ravens, scattered trolley parts, and tires. The accessory would be a abandoned t...