Model Lighting, Miniature Street Lamps and Lights
Christmas Village Displays
Lighting is an extremely important part of any Christmas village arrangement and is not to be overlooked, since it is often difficult to add in at a later stage. Most of the typical miniature buildings offered for sale at this time of the year come with small LED lightbulbs, either being powered by batteries or an electrical adaptor.
If you have multiple houses and therefore multiple lights, you will need to consider how you are going to conceal your wires (always choose white, snow-coloured wires). Where 'My Village' mountains are used, you will be able to make use of special holes designed for this purpose, located in discreet places.
Otherwise, you will need to plan exactly where your houses are to be sited, so that you can place the light in the correct spot before the sheeting and mountains are positioned.
If you are using Lemax houses powered by battery packs, you will be pleased to find that they come with conveniently long leads, meaning that the on-off light switches can be located out of sight on one side of your Christmas village, altogether.
Numerous houses will mean even more batteries and so it may prove to be a more economical option to invest in a lighting cord with multiple LED bulbs. These are sold in lengths of either three, four or six bulbs. Battery packs can also be powered with adaptors and these come with three or four output jacks to connect to the different battery packs.
If you only have five houses to light from a six-bulb, lead, you can always place two bulbs in one house, or leave the final bulb uncovered to light up a corner of the village.
Any street or paved square within a Christmas village will take on an altogether different character at night-time, where street lamps are used.
Often rather Victorian in character, these lamps are all battery powered and come in packs of two, four and eight, with different designs as shown below. If part of your scene is a little dark, such as a moving Lemax ice skating rink, then twin packs of tiny spot lights can be purchased inexpensively and these are also run on batteries (3 x AA size).
Once positioned, the spotlights can be carefully angled to achieve the desired lighting effect. Alternatively, drape lots of tiny battery powered miniature fairy lights across the rooftops or around the trees (available with clear or coloured bulbs - static or moving / chasing).
Worth noting, when you come to pack up your street lights after Christmas, do pack them away carefully, as they are quite fragile and the lamp at the top can easily snap off. If this does happen, try sticking it back together with superglue or similar, for a firm bond.
The following miniature street lamps and fairy lights are all offered for sale by Lemax, being specifically designed for use in model Christmas Villages:
Gas Lanterns:
Colonial Lamps:
Ball Street Lamps:
Old English Gas Lamps:
Olde Town Lamps:
Model Spotlights:
Six-Bulb Lead:
Coloured Fairy Lights:
Clear Fairy Lights: