CHRISTMAS VILLAGES
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This is an example of some of the modeling work I have done. The red house with the green roof, right side middle is an exact replica of the home we are living in now, complete with mail truck in the front yard. Believe me there is that much snow on the ground in Maine at this time. The house directly behind is a scale model of the home we owned when we lived in Valdosta, Georgia. Similar displays to this one have been set up in our dining room here in Rumford every year for the past 15 years, 3 years in the living room and twenty years prior to that where ever we were living at Christmas time.
Christmas Village 1964 Christmas Village 1966 Christmas Village 1967
I apologize for the print quality of these two pictures. They were
photographed from an 8mm film frame that had been transferred
to video,
paused on the video tape recorder,
then shot from the television screen. Several other photos below were also made in a similar fashion but from a video tape copy.
Christmas Village 1971 Christmas Village 1973 Christmas Village 1975
Christmas Village 1976 Christmas Village 1978 Christmas Village 1979
The black and white photo below appeared in the Rumford Falls Times on December 24th, 1986 along with the following story. The story decribes the village as well as I could so here goes:
Most people know Henry Maifeld as the friendly mailman who delivers your letters, magazines and yes, those dreaded bills. But what they might not realize is that he's the owner of a large miniature village.
In what has become a family tradition around Christmas for 23 years, the village includes more than 200 model houses with 600 colored lights. It keeps getting bigger all the time. His mother started one and her mother before that.
Quite a few people have visited this year to view the village. Henry, his wife Isobel and their three kids, Doug, Sue and Deb just enjoy sitting on the couch and watching it. It seems like every time you look at it you see something different. And to view the village with all the lights out except for those in the model houses is all the more spectacular.
The village requires about 40 hours work to set up, usually stretched out over a week. Traditionally Henry sets the village up the day after Thanksgiving and leaves it up until mid-January.
Christmas Village 1980
Christmas Village 1981
Christmas Village 1982
Christmas Village 1983
Christmas Village 1983
Christmas Village 1984
Christmas Village 1985
Christmas Village 1986
The village, located around an artificial Christmas Tree, is set up differently every year. "This year 3-mile Island was added to the back. The first day I had it set up, one of the cats went in there and got nuked when he knocked it over," joked Henry, adding that to keep the cats out of the village, there is an opening underneath where the cats can play. This year San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge is set up right next to New York's Statue of Liberty. The village doesn't have the look of any one city, but different models do represent places where the Maifelds, who were a military family, have lived or visited. Some of the models have been made from scratch but the majority are made from kits.
The Budweiser Clydesdale wagon which took about 3 days to paint and assemble represents St. Louis for when they were stationed there. Another reminder of the tour in Illinois is the football stadium where the Cincinnati Bengals are taking on the St. Louis Cardinals. Many hours went into painting the team uniforms right down to the players numbers. Another time-consuming chore was individually painting a 50 piece marching band in matching uniforms.
There's also an Air Force Base in the village called Kule AFB representing Luke in Arizona. And naturally in the middle of the village, is the post office, where a mail truck is just leaving the building. There are two McDonald's restaurants because the kids fight over who owns it; the second one was added in an attempt to keep the peace. Not far from one of the McDonalds, firemen are busy battling a house fire and nearby police and EMT have just arrived at an auto accident, with a victim shown being loaded into an ambulance. Henry pointed out a new school, which had just been built to replace their first model 22 years ago. He also built a miniature bowling alley, which has people bowling inside (bbs are used for bowling balls).
Up in the German part of the village, is a theater showing the movie "The Dirty Dozen"- that has been running for 20 years. In another section he pointed out a model of his mother-in-laws house. He made a model of his mom's house but she won't part with it. The next project in the works is to make a model of his current house to put in the village. With the village taking up all the room around the Christmas tree you might ask where they find the room to put the presents? "We've got a real tree upstairs and that's where the presents go," said Henry in response to that question.
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Christmas Village 1989
Two sets of encyclopedias are used to help form the base for the village. Wife Isobel noted "I was watching that movie "Anastasia" the other night and came all the way downstairs to read about it in the encyclopedia and then I thought--it's under the village." She said the village has been shipped all over the world. Every place we went, it went because the main reason for the village is for the kids Christmas. When they were toddlers they would spend hours playing in it. Doug noted "Each Christmas morning, we'd run down here with our Christmas presents, put them in the corner and play on the village for awhile--that's Christmas." Isobel said "it would be nice if one of the kids pick this up (setting up a village) after we are too old to do it anymore." It doesn't look like that will be anytime soon.
CHRISTMAS VILLAGES IN THE NINETIES
