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| Fri, Nov. 20 - - Mobile - RSS | |
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Village a reminder of Mom
Christmas village takes over a room, and brings joy each day to a Spotsylvania couple and visitors who come for a look
Date published: 12/23/2004 By ROB HEDELT JASON BENITEZ can't help but think of his mother when he proudly surveys the expansive and intricate miniature Christmas village filling the den in his Spotsylvania County home. She may have passed away in 1995, but when he looks over the wonder-filled holiday landscape that includes a city, a town square, a farm, a dock and an area filled with vendors, the Bronx-raised 36-year-old feels a special connection. "When I was 18 and just out of high school, I got a place of my own and decorated a tree," said Benitez, who a few years back retired from the Marine Corps and took a job with Northrop Grumman in Washington. "My mom and I started a rivalry of sorts, to see who had the nicer tree. I could never really come close to hers, because she had all sorts of neat old ornaments." But on that first Christmas on his own, Benitez's mother, Catalina, gave him something that started a new Christmas tradition. "The first four houses for my Christmas village came from her that first year, as a gift," he said, inspecting an array which now includes more than 55 houses, more than 1,400 people and such other items as a working carousel and a town walk and skating rink where people are constantly in motion. "I never could compete with her on Christmas trees, " he said, adding "but soon, I had something under my tree that she couldn't match, a village that's grown every year." Like other local collectors who spend countless hours each year buying, repairing, designing and setting up miniature Christmas villages to complement their trees, Benitez gets a special joy each year putting out a new display. In honor of his mother, he's formally named his town Catalinaville. In recent years, the huge display has had to expand up as well as out, with Styrofoam and cotton covering up boxes and boards that elevate the wonderland and the networks of wires and supports underneath.
Date published: 12/23/2004
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