Miniature Christmas village is centerpiece of Cedar City couple’s holiday decorations

CEDAR CITY — Every year for nearly three decades, Rod and Sandra Kaminska have enjoyed putting up their Christmas decorations, including an extensive miniature porcelain village that takes up a good portion of their living room floor surrounding the Christmas tree.

Rod and Sandra Kaminska, Cedar City, Utah, Dec. 3, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Rod Kaminska, 88, said his hobby started back when he lived in California, where he began collecting decorative porcelain houses, figurines and other accessories.

Shortly after Rod Kaminska moved back to Utah in 1993, he met Sandra and they were married in October of the following year. It was the second marriage for both, with their blended family now spanning four generations. 

This year, due to COVID-19, the Kaminskas knew they’d be unable to have the usual crowds of visitors over, but they decided to go ahead and put up all their decorations anyway. They’re hoping their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, friends and other guests will be able to settle for looking at photos and video clips of their village and other decorations.

“It’s not the same as seeing them in person, but we hope they can still appreciate them,” Sandra Kaminska said.

Rod Kaminska said he started out buying a more expensive brand of houses called Department 56, but later switched to less expensive versions found at local hardware and retail stores.

“I’ve bought a few more houses; I’ve been given a few more houses,” he said. “My stepdaughter made 11 of them and painted them and they look just as good as the expensive ones.”

As Christmas season approaches each year, the Kaminskas unpack their many storage totes and get to work. Sandra focuses on other areas of the house while Rod turns his attention to laying out his village at the base of the tree.

The village surrounding the Christmas tree of Rod and Sandra Kaminska, Cedar City, Utah, Dec. 3, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

“I get a kick out of putting it together,” he said. “It takes me quite a while because I have to start in the back and put the lights down and then put the cotton over the lights and poke holes through the cotton and put the lights in the houses and work my way to the front.”

Not only do the rolls of cotton help give the village the appearance of having just been blanketed with snow, but the cotton also serves the purpose of covering up the boxes in which the porcelain decorations originally were packaged.

“I actually use the boxes that the houses come in as the foundation,” he said, pointing to a sloping ski hill under which just a hint of packaging can be seen.

The festive village also includes an airport, a farm, an ice skating pond, a Main Street lined with stores, four churches and multiple firehouses. There’s even a few fishermen surrounding a campfire, along with an outhouse with its door open and a man sitting inside reading.

The entire arrangement takes Kaminska two or three days to set up, he said.

“I used to get it done in a day, but I’ve gotten older and it takes longer and longer,” he added with a chuckle.

Take a short visit to the Kaminskas’ Christmas village by watching the video above and viewing the photos in the gallery below.

Click on photo to enlarge it, then use your left-right arrow keys to cycle through the gallery.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

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