World class Christmas village in a home in Anchorage

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU)— They say ‘it takes a village’ but in this case, one woman created a village in her own home, full of Christmas magic.

Terri Lane is the architect of the village that she calls the Last Frontier Christmas Village. The village itself is huge, roughly fourteen feet long, and stretching across Lane’s living room, in front of the fireplace and under the television.

“I started watching a YouTube video a year ago,” said Lane, discussing her inspiration for the village.

“[The show was] Miriam’s Manor and I was seeing how she was taking styrofoam and making mountains and rivers and lakes and stuff like that for her Christmas village and that really intrigued me and I thought I’m going to try to do that.”

Lane now has an extraordinary piece in her living room in the heart of Anchorage one year later.

She said she started in an area about four by four feet but quickly knew she wanted more.

“Initially it wasn’t going to be this big and then I wanted a Marina, so then I had to come out even further,” she said.

The Last Frontier Christmas Village highlights areas of Alaska that interest Lane.

“I grew up in Homer, so I wanted that portion of the Christmas village for the harbor to be in it and [I] then moved Anchorage, went to college here in Anchorage and I’ve spent a lot of time skiing… so those are my favorite places,” said Lane, showcasing Homer, Anchorage and Mount Alyeska in her unique way.

She hopes that her Christmas village wins first place at Miriam’s Manor’s international competition, with a winner to be announced on Christmas Eve. Lane says entries have flooded in from around the world.

“[Miriam’s Manor has] got a following,” said Lane.

“There’s people from Australia, in Germany and Holland and then a lot of people in New England and Canada.”

Lane said that being in Alaska – while full of inspiration – does present challenges.

“Doing a Christmas village here in in Alaska is a little difficult as far as getting your supplies, the shipping, or they flat refuse to ship certain items,” she explained.

“But we don’t have a lot of the stores that they have like in the lower 48 like Hobby Lobby and stuff like that.

“The other difficult thing is when you’re cutting Styrofoam, it’s a lot of fumes. It’s very difficult to be outside in October cutting your Styrofoam for your Christmas village.”

Despite minor hardships, Lane was able to produce the incredible village, but it was over a year in the making.

“I started last November and at Christmas time I wasn’t even close to being being finished with it,” said Lane.

“So I just basically let it sit, put some of the buildings away, and then I restarted working on it this last September.”

She says there are 60 buildings as part of the display, with many more in storage. She plans to continue expanding her village with the hope it will be even more impressive next year.

“It’s a work of love,” Lane explained, as she has the full support of her family.

“My daughters painted several of the items for me, so it was kind of a good time for us to bond together, have her come over and she’s really good at the detail painting and there’s a lot of painting involved.

“Or fixing people because a lot of these figurines, their arms, will break off.”

While kids around the globe anxiously await Christmas Eve to leave out the cookies and milk for Santa, Terri Lane is hoping to put Alaska on the map with her world-class Christmas village display.

Her message to everyone is a simple one.

“Merry Christmas.”

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