Sherwood Park woman builds incredible Christmas village in honour of late son

Thousands of figurines and hundreds of toy buildings make up a Christmas village like you’ve never seen before and it’s all inside the home of a Sherwood Park woman.

Susan Mancini’s collection contains figurines, such as Waldo and Santa and Mrs. Claus, as well as scenes showing merry-go-rounds, ski lifts and skating rinks. There is also a miniature Churchill Square, Welcome to Edmonton sign and Oilers hockey players holding up the Stanley Cup.

Mancini said the collection, which she calls Sue-ville, began in 1998 when her son Michael passed away from an asthma attack.

“That Christmas was a very somber Christmas, as you can imagine,” she said.

“Mike’s Place, in the corner there, was the first house I set up in our window in our house and it’s just been growing every year ever since.”

Mancini said the Christmas display helps her cope with her grief.

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“Every Christmas, it kept me busy. It kept me from thinking sad thoughts and it just kept me busy, kept my mind occupied, my hands occupied. Every year, it just got bigger and bigger until it turned into this.”

Mancini, who moved to the Edmonton-area from Toronto in February 2016, said the collection takes up a fair amount of space.

“It used to be inside the house we used to live in. When we moved into this house, there’s just no room for it inside the house so my husband suggested, ‘why not put it in the garage?’”

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Mancini typically starts putting the display up after Halloween, but this year was different – she started setting the collection up in July and August.

“I was a little antsy and couldn’t wait to get it out,” she said.

“I do this myself. The one thing my husband does help me with is he helps me put up the backboard there, but all this is me.”

The display is a mish-mash of store-bought items as well as homemade items.

“The oil rig — I made myself out of wood and little pieces of popsicle stick. The castle – that I made out of toilet paper rolls and Pringles tins. That took a while. I painted every single rock on the toilet paper rolls and the Pringles tins,” she said.

“Every year, I try to make something different to put in there that I’ve made myself. Every year, it’s set up differently. There’s no rhythm, no reason, no rhyme to it all.”

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Mancini said the collection has become therapeutic for her.

“This has become, I guess you could say, my savior. It really helped me get through every holiday season since our son passed away. He was like my best friend,” she said.

“I don’t really think about the sadness through the holidays now. It was started with Mike’s Place in his honour, so I guess you could say this whole village, Sue-ville is Mike’s Place.”