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Written by Paul and Shelia Race for Family Christmas OnlineTM





The Christmas TimesTM, the Official E-Mail Newsletter of Family Christmas OnlineTM and Affiliated Sites

This newsletter is for people who like celebrating holidays, especially Christmas. It is produced in conjunction with the following web sites.

Family Christmas OnlineTMGo to Family Christmas Online.com
Cardboard ChristmasTMLearn about collecting, restoring, and reproducing vintage cardboard Christmas houses.
Old Christmas Tree LightsTMLearn the history of Christmas tree lighting.

If you did not get this Christmas TimesTM newsletter through your own e-mail, and you would like to get the newsletters in the future, please join our Christmas TimesTM Mailing List.

On the other hand, if you don't want to receive our e-mail updates, please e-mail us with a "Please Unsubscribe" message (worded any way you wish), and we will graciously remove you from our list.

In this Issue

Welcome to the February, 2015 issue of The Christmas TimesTM.

The good news is that we were so flooded with signup requests and reader questions this past holiday season that we're still digging out. The bad news is that we were so flooded with signup requests and reader questions this past holiday season that we're still digging out. So if you signed up for one of our forums or something and haven't heard back, we aren't ignoring you deliberately. Thanks for your patience.

While this past winter wasn't as harsh as last year's, it still seems to be hanging on extra long. In our back yard - where hardly anybody but us can see it - is a little grapevine tree strung with white lights. All the other outdoor Christmas decorations are taken down, but this one is still on a timer, so it comes on for a few hours every evening. And as long as there are several inches of snow around it, it still looks great. When am I going to take it down, or at least unplug it? When it stops snowing every three or four days, that's when! Our neighbors have taken down all of their Christmas decorations except for a "blow-mold" snowman who still lights up every night. Maybe they're thinking the same thing.

In other words, we're a little bit anxious for spring to get here. That's one reason I'm glad this newsletter includes a spring-themed project we borrowed from our BigIndoorTrains.com site (the one that that caters to folks who love O gauge, On30, and S gauge trains, as well as holiday villages).

That said, we still think about Christmas year-round. If you've been following our stories about our attempts to collect the same plaster Woolworth's nativity figures that I grew up with, you might be interested to know that on a trip to Crawfordsville, Indiana last month, I found a plaster camel-driver (and a bunch of little putz-house style ornaments) in that town's Goodwill. When we got home, I compared the plaster camel driver to the ones in my photographs of my parent's nativity (now at my niece's house in Norfolk). Turns out, he's not made from the same mold. But he'll have a place anyway.

Further down, we link to an article about trying to recreate another nativity, the one my kids grew up with.

In the meantime, my friends at CardboardChristmas.com have helped me ferret out a little more information about some of the little cardboard house ornaments I found.

Click to see a discussion of these little houses on CardboardChristmas.com

Click the following link to see that discussion on the CardboardChristmas.com forum page:

We hope we've brought some holiday cheer this week. And we especially hope that you will enjoy any time you can spend with your family in the coming months.

Topics discussed in this update include:


Mary's Unexpected JourneyMary's Unexpected Journey

Attempting to complete a specific nativity set in time to wrap for Christmas left us wondering whether Mary would get here on time. To our surprise, and thanks to a sorting error at the post office, she took an unexpected road tour of Southwest Ohio on her way here. If your family has a nativity they cherish, you may find this article entertaining.

To jump to the article, click on the following link:


Click to see free downloadable graphics and instructions for making a whole village's worth of springtime-themed structures.

Click to see how easy it is to assemble these buildings.Free Spring-Themed Building Projects

From our BigIndoorTrains.com site comes a new series of projects based on the tinplate candy-box buildings made in the early-to-mid 1900s by West Brothers. These are part of our "Tribute to Tinplate" series of projects that are helping fans of antique trains and toys add authentic-looking tinplate-inspired towns and accessories without breaking the bank.

This year, we're also giving folks who like having a holiday-themed railroad or village, but don't like taking it down, a reason to leave everything set up a few more months. Still in the tinplate style, we have buildings inspired by the holidays of late winter and early spring, including Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Our Valentine's Day structure example.  Click to go to articleSt. Patrick's Day, and others. Yes, we realize that some of those holidays have already passed, but you can get started on the ones that haven't.

Best of all, if you'd like to build these, but you're "all thumbs," the graphics are designed to fit over 160-count Kleenex boxes, so there's not much to cut out.

To jump to the article and start downloading free, professional-quality graphics, click the following link.

To see our other "Tribute to Tinplate" projects and resources, click the following link:

Saint Patrick: His People, His Work and His Day - Click to go to article Saint Patrick: His People, His Work and His Day

I know I've posted this here before, but we have many new readers since then. As much as I enjoy Irish music and culture - I especially appreciate the sacrifices and successes of the many called "Patricus" by his contemporaries. If you celebrate anything about St. Patrick's Day, this article will give you a lot more to think about, and hopefully celebrate.

To learn more about the history behind the man and the legend, click on the following link:

Christmas Discussion Forums

FamilyChristmasOnline.com Discussion Forum In 2014, we started a discussion forum for our Family Christmas Online readers. Longtime newsletter readers know that we already had discussion forums for people interested specifically in Christmas lighting and in cardboard Christmas "putz" houses. The Family Christmas Online forums will be for "anything else" related to Christmas.

By using these forums, our readers with shared interests can communicate with each other directly. And as new members sign up, they can add content, answer questions, post interesting finds, and otherwise build the hobby.

You won't have to register to see the questions and answers, but you'll need to register to post directly to the forums. Also, once you are registered, you'll be able to tell at a glance if there are any new postings since the last time you signed in. (The little icons change color or shape, depending on the forum.)

Logging in is a manual process; that's the only way I can keep hundreds of spammers and nutcases a week from signing up. So it can take a couple days. (Actually, right now it is taking a few weeks - we got so slammed this year.) But once you've logged in, you'll be able to respond to questions, start new topics, and interact with our other readers knowing that we go to great lengths to maintain a safe, friendly environment.

To see the FamilyChristmasOnline.com discussion forums, click on the following link:

To sign up for the FamilyChristmasOnline.com forum, click on the following link:

To see the Old Christmas Tree Lights discussion forums, click on the following link:

To sign up for the OldChristmasTreeLights.com forum, click on the following link:

To see Cardboard Christmas (Putz house) forums, click on the following link:

To sign up for the CardboardChristmas.com forum, click on the following link:

Keep in Touch

Each month, we get more interest in this newsletter, in our Christmas sites, and in the Christmas traditions, ideas, and memories we discuss. We welcome your questions and comments as indicators of what we should be working on next (also, we always try to answer reader questions quickly). In addition, if you have any photos, tips, or articles you'd like to share with your fellow Christmas enthusiasts, please let us know.

Best Wishes!

As always, our hope is that we can continue helping you and your family (as Dickens said of Scrooge):

    Honor Christmas in your heart, and
    "try to keep it all the year."

In the meantime, please keep in touch, and let us know what you'd like to see added or changed.

May God grant you joy and wonder every season of this year,

Paul and Shelia Race

http://FamilyChristmasOnline.com

http://CardboardChristmas.com

http://OldChristmasTreeLights.com


Click the following link to view our December, 2014 newsletter:


To return to the Family Christmas OnlineTM Home Page, click here.

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Click here to see collectible Nativity sets






































Click to see trains for your trees and towns.























Click to see exclusive, licensed Disney(r) train and village collections!


Visit any of the links below to see quality collectible Christmas gifts and
decorations that have been popular with our readers.

Click to see collectible table-top trees, including animated ceramic trees from Thomas Kinkade(r) and other world-class designers. Click to see collectible Christmas wreaths designed by world-known artists. Click to see classic nativity sets, including collections from world-known designers. Click to see collectible Christmas ornaments by world-known designers. Click to see Christmas collectibles with railroad themes - designs by Thomas Kinkade(r).


Note: Family Christmas OnlineTM is a trademark of Breakthrough Communications(tm) (www.btcomm.com).
All information, data, text, and illustrations on this web site are Copyright (c) 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 by Paul D. Race.
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For more information, please contact us

Visit our affiliated sites:
- Christmas Memories and Collectibles -
Visit the FamilyChristmasOnline site. Visit our collection of resources for collecting, restoring, and making your own cardboard Christmas houses. Return to the OldChristmasTreeLights Welcome page Visit Howard Lamey's glitterhouse gallery, with free project plans, graphics, and instructions. Visit Papa Ted Althof's extensive history and collection of putz houses, the largest and most complete such resource on the Internet. Craft and collectibles blog with local news of Croton NY.
- Family Activities and Crafts -
Click to see reviews of our favorite family-friendly Christmas movies. Free, Family-Friendly Christmas Stories Decorate your tree the old-fashioned way with these kid-friendly projects. Free plans and instructions for starting a hobby building vintage-style cardboard Christmas houses. Free building projects for your vintage railroad or Christmas village. Click to find free, family-friendly Christmas poems and - in some cases - their stories.
- Trains and Hobbies -
Visit the Internet's largest resource on choosing and displaying Christmas trains. Visit Lionel Trains. Click to see Thomas Kinkaded-inspired Holiday Trains and Villages.
Learn about backyard railroading with Family Garden Trains
Click to see HO scale trains with your favorite team's colors.
Resources for O gauge and On30 model railroading
- Music -
Carols of many countries, including music, lyrics, and the story behind the songs Wax recordings from the early 1900s, mostly collected by George Nelson.  Download them all for a 'period' album.
Best-loved railroad songs and the stories behind them.
Heartland-inspired music, history, and acoustic instrument tips. Own a guitar, banjo, or mandolin?  Want to play an instrument?  Tips to save you money and time, and keep your instrument playable.
The struggles and influences of early Jesus Musicians and others who laid the groundwork for the Christian music and worship that is part of our lives today.