TRAIN TIME: 2023 Christmas Train Layout - Pt 1 The Granddaughter, The Excitement, The Tree x 3

Even though the Christmas displays are small here - necessitated by this postage stamp of a house we live in - I managed to squeeze in a 4'x6' board on the living room floor last year to set up the Lionel Polar Express train and ceramic village. This year I wanted something different. The board is raised up on sawhorses for easier access and I let the granddaughter pick out a short (4') tree for placement on it. She chose an all-white tree from Wal-Mart that was pre-lit with LED lights. She also picked out a few small boxes of ornaments. Join us as we navigate the waters of a 9 yr old's mind as she decides what she likes and doesn't like for Christmas! Her excitement was contagious and I enjoyed watching her decorate the entire tree by herself, but personally - I'm pooped (too much excitement at my age). Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Tree is up. Fake 'cotton' batting covers the board, her tree is up and the lights on. Looks nice - I was ready to stop here! 😄

All the ornaments bought at Wal-Mart and the dollar store are on. I was ready to stop here 😄

She found a bow. I'm still ready to stop. 😅

The train layout is slowly being set up. The tubular track did not work well at all as the batting kept getting caught up in the engine's gears.

Another trip or two to the dollar store and a whole new set of ornaments and decoration has been applied to the tree. Yeah, I'm through now! 😆

After putting away the Lionel FasTrack that came with the Halloween trains, I had to dig it out again to use on the Christmas layout. It's been a full year since the last layout and do you think I had the presence of mind to just order an oval of FasTrack for use on the Christmas layout!??? Nooooo of course not 😑

The K-Line train runs fine and the K-Line Christmas village is next!

Okay, it's actually been two whole days since she finished the tree and the grandbaby appears to be satisfied with it!! YAY!

1980s GDR Musical Nativity & 2012 Asian Christmas Trees

Last year Toys and Stuff featured a vintage tin-litho Nativity set from Marx. This year's Nativity selection isn't quite that old but does date from the 1980s. It's a hand-carved Nativity with Swiss musical movement that was made in the old German Democratic Republic (Communist East Germany) and exported to West Germany and measures 5 1/4" (13.3cm) diameter x 7 3/4" (19.7cm) H. The set was made in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) region famous for its wonderful wood carvings. Many of the classic types of Christmas decorations come from this region such as nutcrackers, Christmas tree ornaments and so on.

For a hi-res view of the action, visit the YouTube link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cogCcByUx4&feature=youtu.be

The tree shown in the .gif at the top is part of a 3-piece set of Lucite color-changing LED trees which I believe may be from Hong Kong - but don't quote me on that (I still have the box somewhere but can't find it). They are 8 1/2" (21.6cm), 10 1/2" (26.7cm), and 12 1/2" (31.8cm) high and were available in stores last year but I haven't seen them in stores since. I had wanted to buy more of them but never got around to it but after some searching I noticed they're available on-line so perhaps I'll get a couple more.

The Twinkle effect is from Google's 'Auto Awesome' feature in its Picassa web albums.