The First Gift of Christmas 1998

We so enjoyed adding people and making the stories up about our village activites that the shopping ...again ...the buying trip was specific to add people. This year the accessories were titled "A Peaceful Glow on Christmas Eve". It was about this year that I decided I needed to record the dates and specifics of the first gift of Christmas on the boxes since as this tradition would continue the history of the village will be altered by everyone's own recollections. So I did go back and add a little verse to each of the previous boxes and I have added the dates and comments with each addition since then. I am publishing this particular boxed history because it has been added to twice. Not sure if you can read from the picture but the comments are as follows:
"The first gift of Christmas 1998 with the Tree from Steve + John + Jessica + Mike"
"Christmas 2000 New address and lantern boy was hobbled by Steve. John fixed him with glue"
"But no new pieces"

2012 "I notice the candle is broken"

The hobbled boy with the broken candle. It is very hard to see where the knees were broken and repaired but he definitely would be burning his hand if his candle were still lit. Perhaps the candle broke when he originally fell in 2000 and we never noticed it. Probably the small piece got sweep up by the vacuum. The peaceful glow of Christmas eve...such a little piece with so much history.

The priest and young boy came with the set but usually stand by the Old North Church now. Just seems kind of an appropriate place for them.

The little girl in the set wanders around every Christmas wherever she seems to be needed. This year she is standing with the Cratchet Boy who is singing a carol to her.There were also a few pine trees that were an additional first gift this year but we'll talk more about that when we get to the forest entry in coming years.