Christmas village display grows in Slatington

Nance Diefenderfer goes through a lot of batteries around this time of year.

But it’s well worth it, as each one powers the 75-year-old’s small but mighty Christmas village, which she sets up each year on the second floor of George Dillard Manor in Slatington.

“Christmas is my thing,” said Diefenderfer, who has been a resident of the manor for more than a decade.

Spread across about 10 feet of table, Diefenderfer’s display features small shops, a Dairy Queen and a slanted ski slope. She has spent years collecting the decorations, and her job at Second Chance Shoppe, a consignment shop on Main Street in the borough, allows her to keep an eye out for even more trinkets.

Using her experience as a seamstress, Diefenderfer sewed together a white cloth to cover the tables supporting her miniature metropolis, named “Nance (pronounced Nancy) Ville.” It’s been up since the second week of December.

“It looks like something in a book,” Joyce Herman, a fifth floor resident, said of the display. “I think if I lived on this floor, I’d always be out here.”

In fact, the village’s fantastical element is part of the reason Diefenderfer spends hours putting it together, along with a small tree and a wicker giraffe named Skippy dressed in a red scarf and Santa hat.

“I sit and watch it,” Diefenderfer said. “I’m thinking, ‘That’s me going down the street.’ ”

With houses and other décor still stowed away, Diefenderfer plans to extend her display by at least another 4 feet next year, which she will have no problem filling with snow-covered buildings or ceramic citizens bundled in their warm winter coats.