Nestled just outside Howells, Chris Brester has dedicated 35 years to meticulously crafting a sprawling Christmas village, featuring more than 600 buildings and intricate accessories. This festive season, Brester has opened her home to visitors for the first time in seven years, showcasing the enchanting display.
“Every other year is how we started, then I went to every three years,” Brester explained. “This last time, I guess life just kind of got busy for us, and we didn’t realize it had been seven years since we last set it up.”
The Brester family embarked on assembling the elaborate model village earlier this summer, understanding that the setup process spans nearly an entire year. Even with all four of her children now married, they still find moments to contribute to the project.
“It’s one of those things where we can’t work on it constantly, you know, every day. So, there might be some time on a Sunday where we can actually fiddle around the whole day and work on it a little bit more,” Brester noted. “But a lot of times it’s just a little evening project for an hour here, a couple hours there.”
This year’s extended preparation phase has piqued more interest from the local community than usual.
“This time is when it really kind of snowballed and we started to have a lot more people coming in,” she remarked. “It’s fun to share it with so many people because of their reaction to it. Everybody says they hear about it, but you just can’t envision it until you actually see it.”
In early December, Brester and her husband, Kevin, welcomed a first-grade class from Clarkson Elementary. Initially apprehensive about hosting young children around the delicate display, Brester found the experience to be unexpectedly rewarding.
“I’m not gonna lie. At first, I was a little bit leery about having first graders come through because they have a lot of energy,” she admitted. “But I’m speechless because it was just so much fun. Their reactions, the jaw-dropping reactions. They got right in there, nose to piece, and took a look.”
