The Department 56 North Pole Series is probably the most popular and enduring of all.  Since it is so well known and has such a presence on the web, I will not duplicate what's already available here.  However, as we make progress in building the Christmas 2000 (and hopefully permanent) display, I will post photos and information here. 

Here's the status of the village as of 12/20/00:

The ceiling is finished!  At Thanksgiving we painted it navy blue and then "upholstered" it with starry sky fabric.  Because the ceiling is plaster and wouldn't hold staples, I originally  planned to use 1" strips of wood to anchor the fabric to the ceiling and put strings of white and blue lights in the gap between the ceiling and the fabric to simulate twinkling stars.  I was persuaded that the wood would be too heavy for the ceiling to support, so I ended up with 1/8" lath.   I decided to leave out the twinkling lights in fear that I might set fire to the fabric.

We've hung the same fabric on the top halves of the walls to complete the "surrounding" sky effect.  We found that even though the windows had blinds, the light shone through the fabric, so we fitted styrofoam into the windows to block out the remaining light.  

Last weekend I built a tunnel for the train out of styrofoam, aluminum wrap, and spray-on insulating foam.  Considering that I didn't know what I was doing, I was really happy with the results... but I don't think any engineering schools will be recruiting me soon...

We're now in the process of cutting styrofoam for mountain backdrops and different elevations for the display tables, and unpacking what seems like thousands of boxes containing my D56 North Pole buildings.  Don't know if we'll have this done by Christmas Eve, when we have a few dozen people coming to see it...

I've been taking pictures all along and as soon as the village is done, will post them here. 

At the current rate, this will be done by Christmas 2010...