Christmas in the Country

Christmas in the country, take a back road in Kimball County at night and what do you find? A majority of the time you'll find an old farm house sitting along side the road, a big tall leaning barn, corn and wheat fields, and some cows.

When you get just north east of Bushnell around this time of year you will see a glow in the night sky, Christmas at the Wasielewski's, the barn, house and garage all wrapped in bright colorful Christmas lights, with this glimpse of Christmas outside one can only imagine what magic is inside the home.

Started many years ago Brandie Wasielewski was given her first Christmas village building by her kids.

"It was about 10 or 15 years ago when the kids gave me my first building for Christmas, and our village has just grown from there," said Brandie.

The Christmas village began with six and currently now exceeds 85 lit pieces, pine trees not included in the count...

"Between my village and my daughter Monica's nativity scenes we are running out of room but there are many more pieces we would love to have."

Village buildings from a bate store, post office, hunting lodge, big red barns, to churches and many more the village takes up the entire front counter space in the living room.

"Originally we had this counter space, I think my mother-in-law had it built for a desk but that what where I first set up my village, and then we started to add on year after year."

Monica was three when she began her collection of nativity scenes.

"We were at a Bushnell family night and everyone brought a present to give, one of the ladies there received a nativity scene for her gift that was the gift Monica wanted, she told her how much she loved it and would love to have it."

That gift was the first of Monica's nativity scene collection.

"We normally get one new piece for the village a year, they are gifts from my kids or my sister," Brandie said.

Now not always is this village looking so joyful, many of you understand the difficult task at hand if you happen to have a cat at Christmas time. From pouncing in trees to looking out the windows, laying in the mists of the village and knocking many items over.

"It looks like a tornado went through our Christmas village most mornings."

Not including the time spent re-decorating after the cats, the village takes nearly a week to set up, the family normally has it set up after Thanksgiving takes it down a few weeks into January.

Merry Christmas from the Wasielewski family, even out in the middle of nowhere.