WHEATLAND — There is at least one Christmas tree in every room of Norm and Betty Geren’s Wheatland home, ranging in size from tabletop to 10 feet.

There are four in the dining room and, yes, there are even trees in the bathrooms — for a total of 16 exquisitely, whimsically and symbolically decorated Christmas trees.

But it’s not the Christmas trees the couple spends the most time decorating or takes the most pride in displaying. It’s the winter village in their basement recreation room, with more than 100 buildings, animated scenes, a train and a trolley that is the pièce de résistance of their holiday decorations.

“Every year it’s different,” said Norm. “One of the things I love about building the village with Betty is I get to play with trains again.”

“We just kind of combined both our interests into one,” Betty adds.

Still adding on

The village has grown in size almost yearly for the last 23 years from a single St. Nicholas church one of Betty’s sisters gave her as a housewarming gift when she moved into a home on Seventh Avenue in Kenosha to more than the 113 illuminated buildings in this year’s configuration. It takes up a space 12-feet wide by 81/2-feet deep.

“There are still 20 homes that didn’t fit,” she said.

There is a downtown with a civic area and municipal buildings, a city park, a suburban neighborhood, a rural farming area, a wilderness area, a wharf and a mountaintop ski village. If you add up every street sign, tree, animal and miniature person the collection reaches beyond several hundred pieces.

The trolley stops at each end of the downtown area while the ON30-scale train circles through the countryside. Look closely — which you can’t help but do — and you will find an animated snowball fight, a man chopping at a tree, children playing tug-o-war and a variety of animated figures skiing, sledding, skating, barn dancing, and doing the Nutcracker ballet.

Night Before Christmas

Betty said her favorite piece is the Lemax Night Before Christmas home which narrates the story while spotlights shine in each room to show the appropriate scene. Norm likes the tree house with the tire swing because it reminds him of vacationing at his cousin’s home as a child.

Most of the pieces are from the St. Nicholas, Lemax and Department 56 collections. There is Betty’s Diner, for obvious reasons. There is a pharmacy and a farm stand donning her son Phil Palmer’s first name and the businesses in the downtown correspond to the real-life occupations of her other children.

Impressive enough as it is, Norm said they usually have moving water in the scene as well. The mill near the wharf, the fountain in the city park and the mountain waterfall and stream usually have running water. Many of the buildings also have sound effects, though when played together they clash.

Future plans

The couple said it is their goal to expand the size of the village to fit all the buildings — though they may not be done adding more pieces.

“Usually she says, ‘No more’ for the village and I go out and buy something,” he admits.

But she is guilty of picking up a new piece here and there too – and even of buying a piece she forgot they already had.

Norm said visions of a multi-tiered setup are already dancing in his head for next year.