Silver Bells are ringing for Rockwell Museum’s Festival of Trees and Christmas Village
Published 12:06 am Thursday, December 8, 2022
- Allen starts building the villages in September, using her own money for supplies.
ROCKWELL — For the 15th year in a row, the Rockwell Museum will be hosting its annual Festival of Trees and Christmas Village event. Spearheaded by museum volunteer Mallory Allen, the beautifully detailed miniature Christmas village was designed and built by her for the community to take in and admire.
Every year, Allen comes up with a different theme that the village will have. In the past, she has done “New England Fantasy Railroad Trip through New England,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” and “Alpine Express.” This year they are doing “Silver Bells: It’s Christmas Time in the City.” The current village is constructed with painstaking detail that Allen says took her over 300 hours to complete.
“I majored in art history with a focus in architecture. My great-grandfather was an architect and I sold out to industry and worked in IT since 1980. My love of architecture comes out here, so I like architecturally correct buildings. I like models of actual real buildings when I find them,” Allen said.
The village that will be on display this year is a historically and architecturally accurate portrayal of a late 1910s town during Christmas time. This includes automobiles, sleds, different kinds of businesses, people doing a wide variety of winter activities, a model train that continuously moves around the boarder of the village, and little silver add-ons that give the theme its name.
“The secret is to get it good enough for people’s imaginations to take over and fill in the gaps,” Allen admitted.
The museum will also have several artificial Christmas trees decorated by multiple local businesses, churches and civic groups. It does not cost anything to decorate a tree, but each group provides their own ornaments and such.
The event will be open from Dec. 9-23. The hours of operation will be 6-8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 1-4 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. on Saturdays, and 1-4 p.m. on Sundays.