Does it really take a village? For this collector, it’s enough to sap holiday spirit

A friend recently said something to me that’s now living rent free in my brain, and it concerns, of all things, Snow Villages. Yes, those ceramic Department 56 Snow Villages.

I’ve been gifted a Snow Village every Christmas for 40 years by my mother-in-law. This means I have an entire wall in my basement filled from top to bottom with bins of Snow Villages.

The Snow Villages run the gamut from nativity scenes to a ceramic figurine of the dad in the movie “Christmas Vacation” getting electrocuted. And then there’s a Merry Christmas river boat casino.

It’s safe to say there’s no real theme going on with the Snow Villages. It’s an eclectic collection. A collection I get to spend an entire day every December unpacking and setting up.

The worst part is the unpacking. The Snow Villages are encased in what I’m going to call Styrofoam coffins. When you’re releasing the Snow Villages from their graves, the sound of yanking the ceramic from the Styrofoam is 10 times worse than fingernails on a chalkboard.

(Quick sidebar: Most people under the age of 30 have no idea what that sounds like. They were educated with smart boards or white boards. Schools haven’t had chalkboards for years. It’s kind of sad to think that the joy of clapping erasers and inhaling harmful amounts of chalk dust will soon be gone forever.)

After your ears recover from that violent auditory onslaught, you have to wrestle with cords and then start figuring out how you’re going to place the Snow Villages. Do you know how challenging it is to display 40 Snow Villages?

First, you need a lot of room. Second, you want it to look somewhat attractive. OK, attractive is a reach. You’re doing really well if there’s some logic to the Snow Village tableau you’ve created, and it doesn’t appear to be a universe where the Mr. Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from “Ghostbusters” is looming over baby Jesus in the manger.

Ugh, none of this would ever be my first or probably one-millionth choice of how I want to spend my day.

If you’re wondering about “the living rent free in your brain” thing, well we’ve now arrived at that part of the story and it’s a doozy.

Earlier in the week when I was telling/complaining to a friend about the Snow Village task that awaited me, she said, “So, I guess you’re telling me your mother-in-law hates you.”

I just laughed nervously but then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Have the Snow Villages been a hostile gift-giving act for 40 years?

If you approach it logically, the answer is yes.

I was given gifts that require large amounts of storage space. (And I’m not even factoring in that my family has moved a lot, cross country even, dragging those bins of Snow Villages with us.)

The gifts also demand a large time commitment. There’s the unboxing, the setting up, the taking down, the stowing. Ugh.

Then there’s the displaying. Solving a Rubik’s cube is easier than figuring out how to make the villages look festive instead of, well, concerning.

Taking all this into consideration it does seem like Snow Villages are, indeed, a holiday hate crime.

But because it’s the season to be jolly, I’m going to do what I excel at: I’m going to be a smidge delusional and believe that nobody could dislike me that much — especially a family member.

Am I wrong about this? Really, who could hate me? I’m an absolute delight, right?

Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs @snarkynsuburbs, and on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs.