Most Christmas village display ideas start with the same box: little lit houses, a tangle of cords and a bag of bottle brush trees. The houses are the easy part. What makes the display is height, snow and light, and one place to plug it all in.
These 13 are real villages, all but one set up at home by the people who own them, from four painted Dollar Tree houses on a kitchen table to a Department 56 city on a six-foot table, each linked to the maker’s own page.
1. Turn A Dresser Into Lit Village Shelving
Best for: A big fit collection with no free wall
Materials: A painted dresser with the drawers out, Silk mineral paint in Saltwater, a drill
Size: One dresser, five rows of shelves in two columns
Difficulty: Easy, with a drill and paint
Her collection had outgrown the mantel, then two four-foot tables, and in the new house a free wall for them was hard to find. With the drawers out of her office dresser, the thin plywood under each drawer became a shelf, painted white inside as a backdrop, with a hole drilled at the back for the cords.
Most houses needed about 9 inches of clearance, so taller ones sit on the top shelf. Five came new in the box for $20 at a yard sale.
2. Fill A Glass-Front Hutch With A White Glitter Village
Best for: A small home, or a village split into little scenes
Materials: Cotton batting or a snow blanket, wood blocks painted white, bottle brush trees
Lighting: Lighting kits, remote tea lights or fairy lights under the snow
Difficulty: Easy
Her glittery white village has come out for about ten years. Four shelves of a white glass-door hutch hold the houses among green and frosted bottle brush trees, and when space is short the set breaks up into little scenes on a coffee-table tray, an end table or the pantry shelves.
Height hides under the snow: a soup can, a box or a painted wood block. A flat-plug power strip lets the hutch sit close to the wall.
3. Build A Christmas Tree Shaped Village Shelf From Scrap Wood
Best for: A collection that needs height without another table
Materials: 1×12 pine, 2×4 legs and supports, two angled 1x4s, Rust-Oleum paint and primer, snow batting
Size: About 5 ft wide at the base, with shelves of 5 ft, 4 ft and 3 ft 6 in
Difficulty: Moderate, with a miter saw and drill
Her husband has collected village pieces since he was a boy, and this scrap-wood shelf gives them three tiers in a slim footprint. Two 1x4s cut at an angle make the upside-down V of the tree, six short 2×4 legs lift the bottom shelf, and 2×4 supports sit behind the upper ones.
The shelf tops stay bare under white snow batting, and after the holidays the shelf can hold other decor.
4. Tuck Handmade Wooden Barns Into Open Kitchen Shelves
Best for: A few handmade pieces among everyday dishes
Materials: Houses built from salvaged wood, quarter round, old molding, dowels and chair legs
Lighting: None
Difficulty: Easy, styling only
Red and white barns sit among stacks of white milk glass on open kitchen shelves, with no platform and no lights. Each house, barn and church is a one-off by an artist named Liese: chimneys from vintage wood and quarter round, a steeple from old molding, stove pipes from dowels and chair legs, and tiny wreaths with red bows on the doors.
The blogger first found them in a booth on a holiday shopping trip downtown.
5. Fill An Empty Firebox With A Glowing Village
Best for: A faux fireplace that is never lit
Materials: Two Balsam Hill Old Town Cityscape Village sets, or single lit houses on shelves
Lighting: Plug-in houses with plugs that line up
Difficulty: Easy with the set, fiddly from single houses
Dozens of cream houses climb the firebox like a hillside, glowing under a white mantel of eucalyptus garland and candelabras. Courtney first built the look from single houses, with shelves, stacking and every house plugged into the next, and she compares it to Positano. It is the back cover of her Christmas book.
The page is a sale post for her Balsam Hill partnership: Balsam Hill now makes her design as a set. She has kept the village in her faux bedroom fireplace for months.
6. Line The Mantel With Vintage Putz Houses And Bottle Brush Trees
Best for: A mantel shelf and a collection of small houses
Materials: Vintage and reproduction putz houses, about two dozen bottle brush trees, a balsam fir garland
Difficulty: Easy, styling only
Putz houses are small cardboard houses, made since the early 1900s and first set around nativity scenes. Many of these are vintage and some are modern reproductions, lined up along a red brick mantel with the bottle brush trees between them.
Below, the garland carries larger evergreens, big frosted globe lights, a wooden and felt ball garland and vintage crocheted snowflakes, with a pinecone at each end and striped stockings on both sides.
7. Set Battery-Lit Village Houses On Batting Above A Garland
Best for: A mantel with no cords to hide
Materials: Four Walmart Holiday Time houses, Polyfil batting, bottle brush trees
Lighting: Battery, with a timer setting
Difficulty: Easy
A red plaid house, a white church, a blue house and a red barn sit on Polyfil batting cut to size and fluffed, with extra bottle brush trees filling out the forest. The timer turns them on at night by themselves.
Black metal candlesticks stand at either end, and a mixed greens garland runs below. The post was sponsored by Walmart in 2021, so the exact houses may no longer be sold.
8. Build A Village Inside Glass Jars On The Mantel
Best for: A few pieces or a narrow mantel
Materials: Apothecary and hurricane jars, light-up paper houses, fiberfill or Epsom salt, pine branches
Lighting: Light-up houses and white fairy lights in the greenery
Difficulty: Easy
Each jar holds its own small scene: a lit white church in one, a little house in another, a deer among trees in the third. Fiberfill swirls up around a house like fresh snowfall, while small animals and figures stand more steadily in Epsom salt.
Some pieces are ornaments with the eye hook pulled out. Pine branches wrap the jar bases, and the glass reflects the white lights. The post was made in collaboration with JOANN, and the linked products may no longer be sold.
9. Build A Multi-Level Department 56 City On A Six-Foot Table
Best for: A big lit collection that comes out every year
Materials: Three 2 ft x 2 ft pieces of thin plywood, wood-block risers, EPS foam, white felt, a Plexiglas poster frame, paper grocery bags
Size: One 6-foot table
Difficulty: Moderate, a build reused for years
Wendy’s Christmas in the City collection is laid out as Covington, Kentucky, on the Ohio River, with a blue suspension bridge over banks made from dampened, crumpled grocery bags. The river is a Plexiglas poster frame painted on the underside.
Wood blocks at least 3 inches high lift the plywood, so every cord runs underneath to one surge protector. She photographs the layout before taking it apart to drill.
10. Run The Village Along A Bench Under The TV
Best for: A long, low media wall
Materials: White batting on the bench under the TV
Size: One bench under the TV
Difficulty: Easy, the collection is the work
Sarah’s family has added to this village for about 20 years, and that year’s new piece was a holiday-themed Home Depot. It runs along the bench under the TV, which also serves as extra seating.
They light it every evening while they watch TV. Because the village is busy, the shelves around the TV stay simple.
11. Group A Few White Houses On An Entry Table
Best for: A console, a shallow mantel or one new house a year
Materials: Five white houses, brown and frosted bottle brush trees, a small potted pine
Lighting: LED string lights on a timer, one string for several houses
Difficulty: Easy
Five white houses are staggered across a whitewashed console at the foot of the stairs, glowing softly among the trees.
The same post moves them around the house: the smaller three on a shallow mantel, some on the kitchen nook shelves, and one large house on a stack of books on the coffee table, a start for someone adding one house a year.
12. Make The Village The Centerpiece Of A Winter Tablescape
Best for: A dining table set for guests
Materials: White painted craft houses and clearance pieces, a lantern, flocked alpine trees, small silver ornaments
Cost: A $7 clearance tablecloth and four brass fawn napkin rings for $1
Difficulty: Easy
White houses gathered over several years, painted craft houses, clearance buys and Target Dollar Spot pieces, run off-center down a plaid-covered table. A Hearth and Hand lantern holds its own snow scene with faux snow, a handmade church ornament, mini trees and battery candles.
Flocked alpine trees add height and scattered silver ornaments catch the light. The authors call it full but not crowded.
13. Paint Dollar Tree Village Houses White For The Kitchen Table
Best for: A family with small children
Materials: Plastic Dollar Tree houses, plastic-bonding primer, white spray paint, Fusion embossing paste in Pearl, table salt and rock salt
Time: A day of drying before the paste
Difficulty: Easy, and kids can help
Plastic houses mean her children can pick them up and play without breaking glass. Each one had a couple of coats of primer, two coats of white spray paint and a day to dry, then a brush of pearl embossing paste for texture and sheen.
Table salt sprinkled on the wet paste sits where snow would land, and more salt and rock salt make the snow around the bottle brush trees.
