Do you love the cozy vibes of a traditional Christmas village, but have a more modern aesthetic? Me too! This year I'm all about the black and white modern Christmas village and I know you will be too!
My mom and my mother-in-law both have extensive Department 56 village collections. My mom went all out with her village on our entryway console tables. She had the fluffy white snow, dozens of townspeople and prickly bottle brush trees back when bottle brush trees were still classic and not trendy.
I remember looking in all the little lighted windows and imagining the idyllic life of all the little figurines in their world of never-ending Christmas.
Little did young me know that while my mom was setting up her Christmas village, so was my future mother-in-law. I'm told her collection is quite elaborate, my husband has told me tales of afternoons spent helping his dad cut perfect Styrofoam hills covered in snow. These days her village lines the cabinets of their kitchen, though many remain packed away because as we all know, setting up all the pieces of a traditional Christmas village is freaking time consuming! Something this person is intimately familiar with. Yikes!
Every year I debate whether or not to put up the four village pieces I have. The bring me all sorts of Christmas joy, but their traditional aesthetic doesn't always vibe with the rest of my decor. This year I decided to flip the script and do a village, but in a modern (and easier) way.
I like to go big and go home (which is extra easy when you're already in your home) with my Christmas decor in our main living areas. I then like the sprinkle the decor throughout the other rooms, though usually this just means dispersing the cast offs from the big display in the bedrooms and bathroom!
Luckily for my pantry, those big open shelves provide the perfect backdrop for my modern Christmas village. Everything else on the shelves is white and black so my white ceramic houses and black metal houses fit in seamlessly!
I sprinkled in a few bits of greenery with green bottlebrush trees and some faux evergreens. This is something I try to do with all of my interior styling and Christmas always provides endless choices for pretty greens.
A standard rule-of-thumb for decorating with sets is to do it in groups of three. Odd numbers tend to make groups look complete and this is something I generally use for both inside my home and outside when I'm buying bushes or flowers. In this case I basically blacked out and bought all the pretty little houses I could find and then worked out the arrangement when I got home!
There's no snow, or little village people (anyone else just sing "Y M C A" in their head when I mentioned Village People?), but these cute little houses certainly provide the homey, holiday vibes of more traditional sets. With their modern designs and clean lines, you can provide a big impact with multiple houses without it feeling overwhelming (and without having to stuff them all perfectly into those Styrofoam packing boxes).
My favorite thing about some of these little houses? The battery operated lights! Just add some batteries, flip a switch and you're done! No more, "The little lights aren't twinkling, Clark," if you don't have outlets for all your old school village plugs!
There's no segue here, but did you check out my snazzy glass storage jars with the fancy bamboo lids? They're from my favorite home organization company Honey Can Do and you can get 20% off your purchase with code HOUSEOFRAD!
You can shop all of my Modern Christmas Village finds by clicking on any of the photos or you can shop directly from this post by scrolling just a teeny bit farther. Come on, I know you want to!
Until next time!
SHOP THIS POST