LEGO has been adding a new set to the LEGO Winter Village series since 2009, and with more sets in the collection, LEGO fans are able to add more variety to their displays. It’s fun to check out how others are arranging their Winter Village sets, and you may even get some inspiration and ideas for your own setup. We recently discussed some of my favorites (see: LEGO Winter Village Dioramas & Display Ideas), and below are some more. They are all shared in the Fans of LEGO Winter Village Facebook Group and the LEGO Winter Village Facebook Group.
Whether you have one LEGO Winter Village set, two, three, or more, the easiest way to begin is to simply line them up on a shelf or table, arrange the minifigs in various fun poses, and add some lights, and a background. Here is a simple but charming example by LEGO fan Kevin Goggin who set up his village with the help of his 8-year-old granddaughter. The third image is by Shaun Whitehead with a similar setup but with a bit deeper space.
If you have a larger shelf space, you can break up your display into smaller segments, like it is demonstrated below by LEGO fan David MacDonald. The benefit of shallow displays like this is that they don’t take up much space, and they can be rearranged easily.
With a larger display area, you can spread out your village and even add a train. Kari Marie dedicated her dining table to this purpose. Although these types of setups can take up quite a bit of space, they could be viewed and played with from all sides, which is a nice plus.
The LEGO Village buildings are usually just large enough to look good from the front and sides and have some playability inside. This keeps the sets cute and the price affordable. However, if you have the space and funds, you can expand the match the size of larger LEGO City and LEGO Modular Buildings. Simon Lambert demonstrates this with the most recently released #10308 LEGO Winter Village Holiday Main Street set, doubling the size of both shops and enclosing them at the back. You can find several Winter Village to Modular conversions like this at Rebrickable.com with downloadable instructions.
When you build your village, you don’t have to stay with sets just from the LEGO Winter Village collection. LEGO City buildings, and buildings from other themes, as well as vehicles and minifigs, are perfect for expanding the village. One popular set that you often see mixed in LEGO Winter Village setups is the #76388 LEGO Harry Potter Hogsmeade Village Visit. The size and style of the two buildings blend in perfectly. See the images below by Michael Stevenson.
You can also go the other way; instead of adding other sets to your LEGO Winter Village, you can add temporary holiday decorations to your LEGO city layout using elements of the LEGO Winter Village sets. Here is an excellent example by Ewa Szatkowska.
When it comes to trains, you have several options. The #10254 LEGO Winter Village Holiday Train was released in 2016. (A nice addition to this is the #10259 LEGO Winter Village Train Station from 2017). A couple of earlier trains that could be added are the #10173 LEGO Holiday Train from 2006 and the #10194 LEGO Creator Emerald Night from 2009. Although the Emerald Night is not Christmas-themed, the dark-green/tan/brown color-scheme and the style blend in nicely with the Winter Village sets.
Unfortunately, finding older LEGO trains is hard and the prices are usually high, so if you don’t have these sets already, it might be better to look at more recently released trains. The #76405 LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Express (and other previously released LEGO Harry Potter trains) are good choices. The #71044 LEGO Disney Train and Station also comes with a train that works perfectly in a holiday-themed display. LEGO fan Neil Joseph Bennett even added the sleigh from the #10245 LEGO Winter Village Santa’s Workshop to the Disney Train!
Because motorized LEGO trains add movement, the display doesn’t have to be too big to create an impact. In fact, you can just run a LEGO train around the base of a Christmas tree as demonstrated here by Robert D’ovidio and Michael Carney.
LEGO fan Jason Piper shared a different concept for a Christmas tree-shaped LEGO Winter Village display. Take a look below.
You can even run your Christmas train around a LEGO-built Christmas tree. The display below is by Bea F. Saldevar.
I also really like this suspended elf train by Steven Bleck using the new roller coaster tracks. He shares; “My sons and I spent months planning and collecting everything to bring this JKBrickWorks design to life this Christmas. Our village is roughly 50% complete, but we couldn’t wait to show the suspended train in action. Really happy with how it has turned out. My sons envision that the elf train is magically not visible to the townspeople below and have plans to create elevated train stop platforms connecting a walkway to the elevated North Pole and Elf Clubhouse sets (via IKEA Bygglek)! Still, lots to build, but excited about the progress so far!” (You can watch the train running in a video at the Fans of LEGO Winter Village Facebook Group).
Do you remember IKEA Bygglek? A couple of years ago, LEGO and IKEA collaborated to make storage boxes with LEGO studs. Only two products were released (a larger and smaller box) and only in one color (white). Yes, they can be used for storage, but even more popular is using them as fillers to build up bulk for large projects. Because the boxes are white, they are perfect for adding as a base or platform to the LEGO Winter Village sets. Take a look at the excellent example below by Frederik De Leeneer.
Many LEGO fans and families start out with just one or two LEGO Winter Village sets, and then gradually add to their displays each holiday season. If you stay with this process, you can end up with some truly massive creations. Below are a few examples by Jeff Howie, Eszti Eszti, Susanna Nichole, Harold Agr.
Besides getting ideas from the displays of others and downloading instructions from Rebrickable.com, another great resource is the Expanding the LEGO Winter Village book series, which includes instructions for several additional models. Below, I will link to each of the books currently available in the series. And for the currently available LEGO Winter Village and other holiday-themed sets, visit the seasonal items section of the Online LEGO Shop.
As you can see, there is no shortage of fun and festive ideas for the holidays! To see these and many more LEGO Winter Village displays I would highly recommend visiting the Fans of LEGO Winter Village Facebook Group and the LEGO Winter Village Facebook Group. And you’re also welcome to share your own creations and favorites from others in the comment section below.
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
- LEGO Winter Village Holiday Main Street Press-Release
- LEGO Winter Village Dioramas & Display Ideas
- Light-Kits for Your LEGO Winter Village & More!
- Minifig-Scale LEGO Vintage Pickup Truck
- LEGO Harry Potter Village to Winter Village Inn
- LEGO Winter Village Santa’s Visit Press-Release
- Build Up Your LEGO Winter Village – Book Series
I have gotten several ideas from the previous article, and this list is equally inspiring. I’m impressed by that suspended elf train. I remember seeing the video about it a long time ago, but I didn’t think to use it in the village.
Awww! My favorite is the little train with the small Christmas tree and lights. Where do you get lights like that?
Seems to be some thin cables running around. There are various third party options…
Impressive, but I would never get the space and time necessary to do something like this, myself…
I wonder what would happen when Christmas is over… Would the setups get packed up, like ordinary Christmas decorations? Would the houses be kept in one piece. (Maybe I’m just focused too much on my own cleaning, for the moment…)
These are incredible! My kids love to build the winter village, and this list gives us some great ideas. We have been doing the around the Christmas tree setup for years, but this year we will go for a wide shelf layout. The kids are bigger now and they prefer standing while arranging the figures and vehicles.
WOW! My Christmas display looks amateur compared to others. But, I’m happy with what I put together. I added some city sets that didn’t have snow on the buildings . So, I fix that. The sets are the donut shop, post office ( I made from scratch) , a hospital and of course a Lego store. Along with Hogsmeade and ski resort from city. I did the ski and snowboard area on a base plate as well as creating an ice rink also from scratch. A long with Santa’s visit, elves Clubhouse and Santa’s workshop. Oh and let’s not forget the Main Street set just recently. I also made a place for the reindeer when they’re not flying house to house on Christmas Eve. So I guess you can say I was busy.😊 ( yes, I do have last year’s Santa’s sleigh and reindeer set).🎅.I had fun and that matters most of all.
The lights really bring these displays to life. It’s something I would love to do with my own displays. I just haven’t narrowed down the type of light I want. They all seem to have plusses and minuses. I know it’s going to be a relatively big expense, so I don’t want to make a mistake.
Where is that round roadplate coming from? On the 6th picture? I don’t remember seeing that before.
It’s not actually a round roadplate.
It’s probably just four of these old curve plates put together with a bunch of white plates covering the outer white edges…
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=2359p01#T=P
The plates must have been cut short to align with the straight road plates, though. Either the builder had them cut off with a knife, or she just placed the straight road plates directly on top of the curved road plates. (The baseplates are of different height than ordinary plates, but there were various ways to align the height differences…)
Hm… looks like you’re right! 🙂
Lots of inspiration from these. Great ideas – – some of which will be useful in any city layout.
Thanks for bringing them together in one spot.