Why I Oughta...

A few years back, Nat gifted me this Dept 56 building from "A Christmas Story" line that was part of Mantleburg.  It was the only A Christmas Story (it is difficult to continue to insert that "A" in the name of the buildings, but I'll continue to do it.) building that we have as part of Mantleburg.  And, if you have been paying attention over the past few years, you might know that things have slowed down in Mantleburg.  We haven't added or annexed any new buildings into the Village of Mantleburg for the past few seasons and have seen some of Mantleburg be de-annexed (via Craigslist) and re-annexed into other neighboring communities.  And that's ok.  We're trying to simplify things around Christmastime and we're focusing on the Mantleburg line. This fall, I posted some photos and posts about the various Lemax structures that Menards is carrying this season .  All would be nice, but having my mantra in mind, it is enough to know this exist an...

Over on Addison Street in the Elmhurst City Centre, there's this place called Undercover Upholstery.  It is located south of the new parking deck with Orange Theory Fitness in it and north of the Coldwell Banker office and Pizza Palace on the east side of the street.  I parked over there recently when I was getting my haircut at JMC Barbershop . I never thought much of the Upholstery shop and neither saw anyone ever go inside nor did it ever really seem open.  But, it must have been because it's been there for a number of years. It caught my attention this time, because of the numerous flyers on the windows of the place that you can see in the photo above.  There's seven of the same flyer hung up in the front window. And here's a closeup of that flyer.  It is pretty cute and reads:  "Save this town - snow village." "All these buildings and homes must be moved to make room for another seven story parking deck.    The Historic So...

Longtime readers know my fascination with Christmas Villages.  Hell...I even came up with the name for my own town:   Mantleburg .  But, due to space and a little bit of sanity winning out, I've really slowed down on the acquisition of any sort of new Christmas Village stuff. That was, until I was gifted this Chop Suey Palace from A Christmas Story this am. That lead me down a web rabbit hole where I discovered these:   National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation village stuff . Yeah...they're all there.  Cousin Eddie with the full shitter.  Clark's over-lit house, and even the huge tree on top of the Truckster.  As I've learned in the past, these things roll out in phases, so I'm expecting to see more next year. Maybe Mantleburg will get a new subdivision after all...