Make Your Own Holiday Window Display

You do not need to be a major department store on 5th Avenue in New York City to create and enjoy a holiday window display. You can create your own holiday display that will be a joy to gaze upon for the holiday season. Grab your hot chocolate, put on the holiday music, slip on those cozy reindeer slippers, get the family, and follow along.

Step 1: Pick A Spot & A Theme

First, pick a theme for your display. Scour you local dollar stores and craft shops for bargains and interesting items to put in your display. They do not all have to be to the same scale, this is a fantasy display, not a scale model. Plan on some type of movement in the display to add interest and captivate your audience.

For our holiday display we choose to do a typical Christmas Village with a Trolley going through it .

For The Trolley, I used an O-gauge Christmas Trolley Set from MTH Trains. This is my first O-Gauge set, and you can read more about it at TheHobbyGuy.

Our holiday display is in the bow window in our living room. If you don't have a bay or bow window, you can do this on a shelf, a mantle, or a table.

I set the Trolley up first to make sure it would fit, and because I just wanted to play. The set included a circle of track, however, I laid out the track in a serpentine. This will make the trolley wind through the display and give visual interest from different angles.

Comments

[Bosun Rick]

In place of the polyester snow, you could lay down white plastic sheeting (trash bag cut and taperd into the shape of your display) then cover that with plain old table salt! It makes great 'snow', is easy to blend into the scene, won't get tangled up in the trolley wheels, & you can even put little footprints or sled track in it! When Christmas is over, just bag it up and save for next year!

[memyselfand1]

Very nice! technically, it's a tram not a train, but anyway.

[Killer~SafeCracker]

K~SC Like...
Anyway This is much better then I could of done. Good job.

[kkreations01]

Great idea about the smoke from the chimney! I made some trees for my display with styrofoam cones and that shiny tinsel garland. Just wrap the garland around the cone and secure every few inches with staples or floral pins. Quick and Cheap!

[TheHobbyGuy]

Thank you! Very cool idea about the trees. Did you use green cones? or White?

[kkreations01]

Great idea about the smoke from the chimney! I made some trees for my display with styrofoam cones and that shiny tinsel garland. Just wrap the garland around the tree and secure every few inches with staples or floral pins. Cheap!

[tinkernet]

Fantastic! Very inspiring!!

[horoloradio]

B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is amazing what can be done with little money and a lot of creativity!!! No need to buy the expensive "collectibles." You can find cheap, but nice things to use in many stores. As a year-round Christmas Village buff, I applaud your creativity! You have inspired me to go look for my own dollar-store Christmas buildings I have collected and put in storage. While not as fancy as their $100-each big-brand-name cousins, they can still be used to make a beautiful display. You wrote: "First, pick a theme for your display. Scour you local dollar stores and craft shops for bargains and interesting items to put in your display. They do not all have to be to the same scale, this is a fantasy display, not a scale model. Plan on some type of movement in the display to add interest and captivate your audience." Right on!!!!! I could not have said it better myself. This is what Christmas Villaging is all about! Thanks for the inspiration.

[kaste]

This is great! I feel inspired to make my own now. Thank you!

[TheHobbyGuy]

Glad to hear! It is that time for me too - I am putting up the 2007 display. :)

[IamTinman]

Your display looks terrific! I have a tabletop display that I add to every year making houses, railroad stations and stores,out of milk cartons and balsa wood. I added a skating pond using an oval mirror and scoured garage sales and after christmas sales to find miniature people lights and shrubbery to liven up the display.

[Phill]

Nice job! What kind of train is that? RC or an LGB?

[TheHobbyGuy]

Hi. Thank you. Its actually an O-Gauge MTH Christmas Trolley. Very high quality, its packed away now of course, but it ran for a solid 8 weeks and it never failed.

[HoraceWest]

Great job, trains really do make for great displays at Christmas. We do something like that also, my wife found an RC train at a garage sale for $5 a few years ago. One thing to watch out for, the snow has a habit of getting up in the wheels of the train if you are not careful.

[TheHobbyGuy]

Thank you. Great find on the train! I love to hear stories like that!

[Tool Using Animal]

Dang I wish I could get that into Christmas, that's really nice man, I watched the window show on TV, almost nothing to do with Christmas at all, Andy Wharhol, A Dragon and a tree made out of money, phhrht!!

[TheHobbyGuy]

Thank You. ... :)