Massive display is centerpiece for Blasdels' Christmas

Detail of the Christmas house collection of Connie Blasdel. The collection consists of more than 350 pieces and is so large she only sets it up every few years rather than every year. The collection will be up until at least the end of January.(Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)

A DETAIL of Connie Blasdel’s Christmas house collection.

BLASDEL HAS collected ceramic Christmas houses and figurines since the 1970s.

CONNIE BLASDEL’s Christmas collection sprawls over 280 square feet.

Detail of Connie Blasdel's Christmas Collection. This piece was on she "reclaimed" from the dumpsters before they were guarded. Blasdel said the best time to go was immediately after the Christmas season.(Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)

BLASDEL’S COLLECTION consists of more than 350 pieces and is so large she only sets it up every few years. The collection will be up until at least the end of January. (Brenda Ahearn photos/Daily Inter Lake)

| December 20, 2016 2:16 PM

A DETAIL of Connie Blasdels Christmas house collection.

BLASDEL HAS collected ceramic Christmas houses and figurines since the 1970s.

CONNIE BLASDELs Christmas collection sprawls over 280 square feet.

BLASDELS COLLECTION consists of more than 350 pieces and is so large she only sets it up every few years. The collection will be up until at least the end of January. (Brenda Ahearn photos/Daily Inter Lake)

There’s a reason why Connie Blasdel sets up her display of ceramic Christmas houses every other year — it’s a labor-intensive project.

It takes her and her father, Don Blasdel, an entire week to assemble the 356 houses and thousands of tiny accessory pieces that sprawl over 280 square feet of table top, consuming the entire living area of their rural Kalispell home. But once it’s assembled, the extraordinary collection creates a winter wonderland of villages that include a farm, carnival, waterfront park, an expansive townsite with its own Wal-Mart and Ace Hardware stores and other scenes.

Connie began collecting the ceramic houses in the 1970s and has been at it ever since.

“I got some for Christmas from my mom,” she said. “Then I’d find them at yard sales, flea markets, auctions, clearance sales and even dumpster diving back when it was still allowed.

“I’d say I’ve gotten the majority of them since the early ’90s,” she said.

Don, 82, has collected miniatures such as Match Box cars through the years, so some of his collection is used to complete the various winter scenes. There are tiny straw bales and farm animals, miniature parking meters for the “town” section and scene-specific miniatures throughout the collection that number in the thousands.

“I only have five houses that are doubles,” Connie noted.

Some houses are sitting on the back of a couch this year because she’s run out of room.

A couple of pieces have water features, such as a gristmill with a water wheel. Many of the pieces move, including a carnival parachute ride. Some play music and many of the pieces are internally lit.

This is the first year strings of rope lights have been set up to border the displays, adding another dimension that makes the collection shine at night.

Connie, 56, doesn’t have any children to admire the massive display, but she has other family members in the area who stop by to view it.

The Blasdels’ roots run deep in the Flathead Valley. Don’s father, Jesse Blasdel, built the well-known barn that sits in the Blasdel Waterfowl Production Area near Somers.

Connie said her first job as a youngster was changing irrigation pipe for Ray Sanders in the Lower Valley. She’s had a number of jobs through the years, including gas attendant, fairgrounds maintenance worker and freight handler. She has worked at Sykes’ grocery and Sliters Lumber and Building Supply, and spent 20 years with Kalispell Regional Medical Center doing everything from running the switchboard to working as an admitting clerk and cashier.

One of the family’s Christmas traditions is hanging “bouncy angels” from the ceiling. Connie has a couple of such angels in her own home and remembers her mother hanging one over the kitchen table. She and her siblings would see how far the angel would stretch when their mother was out of the room.

Connie’s ceramic Christmas houses make the holidays special, but it’s not a display that can be kept up for any length of time. It will be displayed through late January, and then the task of taking it all down and packing it away will consume several days.

One entire bedroom in the home is dedicated to Connie’s Christmas collection.

“Finding the right box for each house is hard,” Don said. “They’re stacked right to the ceiling.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com