IUS Times

Mary Hall: Unique Collection Buoys Her Holiday Spirit

It's early October and Mary Hall and her husband, Richard, are at home pulling boxes of Christmas decorations from a closet.

There are a lot of boxes--at least 450. Each box is special and contains a carefully-wrapped Christmas collectible that must be handled with the utmost care.

The Halls have been repeating this October routine for more than 10 years. According to Mary, a bookstore assistant at IU Southeast, it takes "three weeks and almost a divorce," to get all of the decorations in place.

Why all the fuss?

The Halls are avid collectors of Department 56 Villages "Christmas in the City." They have been collecting the pieces for 16 years. They rarely miss an opportunity to add to their compilation and have acquired all but two pieces of the entire set. Hall says it is unlikely she would try to find and buy the missing pieces due to exorbitant prices.

"One of the pieces we're missing is a church and it would cost about $2,000 to buy it," Hall explained.

Mary says her first Christmas in the City purchase was the Hollydale Department Store. Her delight with this first piece was noticed by family members. Before long, Mary was receiving pieces of the Christmas in the City collection for birthdays, anniversaries, and, of course, Christmas.

Her burgeoning collection now requires nine tables to set-up, spanning 35 feet long and 5 feet wide. Most of the pieces have some type of lighting and some pieces feature special animation (such as twirling skaters, snow skiers, a carousel, or a working train).

Richard has been the collection's electrician, crawling under tables and running wires as well as testing everything each year. Richard determined years ago that extension cords just weren't going to do the trick, so he created a special wiring system that enables the entire village to be turned "on" with just three switches.

Introduced in 1987, Christmas in the City is a miniature representation of Christmas time in American cities. Most of the pieces are made of porcelain and are finely detailed.

Hall says it's fun to set up the entire village even though it is time consuming. "It puts me in the Christmas spirit," she says.

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