I believe I’ve said it before, but it’s Christmastime again and by gum it’s still true: Queensborough is kind of the perfect little Christmas village.
Do you remember those miniature villages that people used to set up in their homes at Christmastime, tiny snow-covered (fake snow, but you know what I mean) houses and shops and churches, with little lights inside so the windows would be glowing warmly? (Think Hogsmeade in wintertime.) They looked like this:
(I have the vaguest of vague memories from my childhood here in Queensborough that Bobbie Sager Ramsay used to set up one such lovely little village in the windows of her general store every year. People who would know: am I right about that?)
Actually, given the vast number of pictures that just turned up on Google Images when I searched “miniature Christmas villages,” I am pretty sure lots of people still set these miniature villages up in their homes. Which is wonderful news, because I have always loved them, and I think the Manse is going to have to have one sooner rather than later. Here’s another nice one:
Anyway, what I was going to say is that whenever I drive into Queensbrough in wintertime, it reminds me of one of those quaint miniature villages – only full-size. With the graceful spire of the historic white board-and-batten former Anglican Church in the background, the picturesque waterfall of the Black River at the old grist mill – the water is still flowing now, but soon it will be frozen – and the beautifully decorated and lit-up homes, our tiny hamlet in a valley is kind of a Christmas village incarnate.
I am working on taking some photos of the beautiful Christmas lights that people have put up around Queensborough this year to share with you. (I downloaded a night-photography app on my iPhone, but I am still trying to figure it out. A photographic genius I am most decidedly not, as any reader of Meanwhile, at the Manse will have long since figured out.) But in the meantime, and as a little introduction to the idea of how pretty and Christmassy our village is at this time of year, I took the photo that’s at the top of this post – about a week ago, before we had the snow that now lies on the ground. You’ve seen that sign before in my posts (and you see it every day if you are lucky enough to live in Queensborough), but I just thought it was so nice that the Queensborough Beautification Committee had dressed up the entrance signs with seasonal decorations for Christmas.
All you have to do is drive over the modest hill that you see in the background of my photo, and you come down into the valley where our perfect Christmas village lies. Do that drive after dark, when the seasonal lights are on – preferably after a fresh snowfall – and you will see a magical little place. A full-size miniature Christmas village, so to speak.