Starting Over in a Ceramic House

How I Will Rebuild My Home, and My Life, With Department 56

I was 20 years old when I first spotted Scrooge’s Counting House on a shelf in Kaufman’s Department Store in Pittsburgh, PA. That was the year I had moved into my first real apartment, all on my own. My father died earlier that year, and suddenly all of our Christmas traditions changed.

Instead of going “home” for the holiday, to the town where I grew up, to the place where I’d spent every Christmas for all of my life, we needed a change. We didn’t want to keep things the same with my dad gone. So we decided my mother would come to Pittsburgh, where my brother and I were both living after college. It just made sense, to start anew.

I had the bigger place, room for her, and a nice-sized kitchen, so it was decided I would host.

But it felt off-kilter. We had no traditions in Pittsburgh. I didn’t own any ornaments or decorations. I’d never put up my own tree or made gingerbread. How was I supposed to be the keeper of any family lore?

The moment I saw that ceramic Dickens Village House in the department store, I knew.

It cost $45, which was a lot for a single girl who taught preschool at the time, but I plunked down my cash without giving it a second thought. The ceramic, painted house with the official…