By AMANDA FRINK, Observer Staff Writer
Since the late 1980s or early 1990s, Dennis Roberts has been collecting ceramic Christmas village pieces. And for the first time in five years, he’s taken them all out of their boxes and set up a large snowy village in the back of his Hungry Harbor Grill for the community to appreciate during the holiday season.
Approximately 150 square feet in size, Roberts says it took him about 40 hours to construct the village.
“I felt like ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ as I was setting it up – like someone should’ve tied me down,” he jokes.
Featuring numerous Department 56 collectibles, the village has five scenes – mountain, rural, residential, commercial/downtown, and the wharf – among the snowy hills, cliffsides and frozen ponds.
Though Roberts says he hasn’t kept a tally on his collection, there are easily 50 or more little ceramic buildings to enjoy, such as fiber-optic houses, a post office, churches, a barn, treehouse (complete with a tire swing), retro McDonald’s, movie theatre, backyard greenhouse, Chinese restaurant, Christmas tree vendor, an outhouse, fish market, bed and breakfast, boat builder, lobster restaurant, banks, newsstand, toy stores, real estate office, fire house, lighthouses (two of which have a rotating lantern lights), library, grocery, train station and a couple trains.
Along the wharf, fishing boats are festively decorated with tiny Christmas lights while a couple of sea lions sit atop a bright red buoy.
The longer you look, the more details you’ll find – such as decorated Christmas trees, an outdoor fireplace, deer, an ice fisherman, garbage cans, ducks, stacks of firewood, a fountain, covered bridge, Santa and his reindeer, and kids sledding through the snow and having snowball fights.
In addition to Hungry Harbor’s fun year-round beach décor, their front room also has numerous snowmen and a Christmas tree on display. The back room, known as the Kite Room, is available to rent for parties, and the village will be on display until the first of the year. Hungry Harbor is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
