For Bill Hathaway, Christmas came early this year. It’s not uncommon to see retail stores putting up their Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. But for Hathaway, decorating his house for Christmas starts the first week in October.Hathaway’s urge to start decorating doesn’t come from his need to get in the Christmas spirit; it’s all about the time it takes to set up his holiday snow village. “I usually start the first of October and don’t finish until sometime in December,” he said. Hathaway started his Department 56 snow village collection in 1990. “The first piece I bought was called Doc’s House, and I bought it because of my dad (Ralph ‘Doc’ Hathaway),” he said. “And I’ve been buying them ever since.” He now has more than 600 pieces.The village begins under the Christmas tree, winds around the entertainment center into a bedroom, carries over to the front room and trickles down to the basement. Hathaway said he worked on it whenever he could. “Sometimes I would work on it after work, if I had the energy,” he said. “Otherwise, it was usually on the weekends.” Determined to finish a section, he often worked through the midnight hour and then some.Hathaway and his wife, Tana, are tempted to keep the snow village intact all year round because of all the work; instead, they construct it every other year, starting the dismantling process in February.The snow village has brought a following. “We only put it up every two years and then we take a year off,” Tana Hathaway said. “I’ll have friends call me in July and ask, ‘Are you putting it up this year?'”The couple has found a way for all their hard work to pay off – and benefit the community. Since moving to Falcon in 2003, they have received about 230 visitors (mostly word of mouth) who want to view the spectacular snow village. In return, they ask the visitors to bring a nonperishable food item. “We were able to give more than 311 pounds of food to the Falcon Food Pantry,” Bill Hathaway said. “And if we can give some people something to enjoy while doing this, then great.”
