CHRISTMAS-MAD grandparents have splashed out £20,000 transforming their home into a mini-festive village, complete with a zoo and ferris wheel.
Pauline, 66, and Rob Sollis, 62, have spent two decades amassing a collection of well over 2,000 individual pieces, including town houses, a zoo, a cathedral, and even a functioning fairground complete with a ferris wheel.
The retired grandparents of one, from Stratton, outside Cirencester in Gloucestershire, proudly display their floor to ceiling collection all year-round in their garage, and have even made an event of it 'Vale Road Christmas Lights'.
The pair even spruce up their garden with a North Pole area decorated with snow and penguin figures, a nativity display, 3ft statues of toy soldiers and angels, and even a handmade wooden sleigh complete with a Santa.
Pauline said: “We first began collecting in 2001 when we were visiting a garden centre just before Christmas, and Rob saw a whole miniature Christmas house display and fell in love.
“We bought a few of the houses then and there and put them on display on a spare sideboard in the front room.
“After Christmas, we went and got some more pieces in the sale.
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“The bigger LeMax pieces have cost us between £40 and £200, like the fairground and museum.
“Most of the houses have cost between £25 and £60.
“The pieces are just fascinating; you could look inside the windows and see inside the little shops.
“You can even see the dinosaurs in the miniature National History Museum.
“If it was a toy shop, you could see teddy bears in the windows of all shapes and sizes, a clothes shop and you could see the mannequins inside with dresses on.
NEW PIECES EACH YEAR
“It became a yearly tradition, and we go out and get more pieces each Christmas."
The couple’s collection is so extensive, that it started to take over the living room, so in 2013, Pauline spent five months setting up the display in their garage.
She said: “It took me so long to put up that we’ve never put it away, and it permanently stays in the garage now.
“Rob set up all the electrics, and I organised all of the pieces.
“We’ve got town houses, churches, a park with a river running through it that has dancers and skaters on the frozen parts.
“There’s a huge funfair, an industrial area with factories alongside a river with water mills, a ski slope with a cable car and a Christmas tree.
“We’ve got quite a few specialty pieces too like a nativity and a cathedral.
“We got a new piece for this year, which is a stage that lights up, and plays music, it has quite a few options.
“There’s also some new funfair rides, as well as ginger bread men and human figurines in the collection.”
The impressive model village has drawn in visitors from all over the country over the past ten years from children, students, and families.
RAISING MONEY FOR CHARITY
Since opening the display up the public, the couple have raised more than £15,000 for charities including Macmillan and Samaritans, by charging a small entrance fee on £1.50 for adults and 50p for children.
Pauline added: “We opened up the display to put a smile on people’s faces and to get them into the festive mood.
“Year on year, we add another piece and do something a bit different with our garden display so people get to see something new.
“We pride ourselves on being an accessible place for people to come and enjoy a little bit of festive cheer.
“We even like to do little activities with the children who come to visit, like asking them to count up all the miniature Santas.”
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