The famous Christmas villages sets were known as Nativity scenes in the past. Back in the day, Italian people used these Nativity scenes to tell people about Christmas stories and provided awareness about Christians’ religion. Later on, small Nativity displays were produced for longer presentations (without using any live animals).
With the passage of time, some Europeans started using these practices, and throughout churches and homes, Nativity scenes were displayed. Hence, changes and innovations were done with time, and Nativity scenes started looking like a small villages, and therefore; people began calling them Christmas villages sets. Well, today’s people use these village sets as decorative pieces especially on Christmas Eve.
During The Moravian Time
If we talk about the Moravian, families belonging to this area started creating large village sets called “Putz houses”. Putz houses were made up of paper or even cardboard. Besides these materials, they also used mirrors to complete the look of frozen ponds. Families used to create all of these things by utilizing the materials available in their homes or anything found in the countryside.
Christmas Villages Come to America
The tradition of making Nativity scenes and Christmas villages sets came to America through the immigrants of Europe. But later on, American retailers made these Christmas village sets more famous. The father of dime stores, named Woolworth, traveled throughout Europe in the 18th century and brought the cardboard used by Germans to make the putz houses and introduced that cardboard to the American marketplace.
As Americans were already much inspired by the toys and the glass ornaments created by Germans when these Christmas sets came to the American markets, people bought them in great numbers. However, different German holiday traditions were also found abundantly in the American Christmas tradition. Moreover, there was a lot of similarities between the Christmas villages of Germany and America.
During World War I, trinkets and toys from Germany started vanishing. Thus, to fuel the Christmas market in America, Woolworth joined hands with Japanese manufacturers to produce American’s beloved Christmas village sets. Shortly after, the Japanese made Christmas houses that were made available to Americans.
Nevertheless, most of the Christmas houses contained a hole on the back so that families could add a ray of light to show the glow coming from the Christmas village set. Later, people started liking the Japan-made Christmas village sets a lot, and with time, these village sets also became very famous.
Ending Notes:
If the holidays are near and you want to make your home look beautiful, glowing, and unique, you need to purchase Christmas village sets for your home. These village sets work as a decor item and can be placed in any place around the home so that every visitor coming can see them.
Lastly, by knowing the history of this beautiful decorative item, you can teach people about the origins of these village sets and their connection to the Christian religion.