LEWISTON – There’s the inn with no room, angels on high, chickens scratching the ground and a swollen Mary riding a donkey along a rocky path.
It’s a room-sized Bethlehem for 5-inch people – the star attraction at Roger Gosselin’s home for almost 10 Christmases.
This time of year, friends and friends of friends troop by to admire the delicate details of the resin-cast pieces, like flickering-light fireplaces, doves roosting in a tower and little polished pots by the baker’s house.
It’s all nestled on tables draped in burlap sack that imitates desert sand and hides a maze of wires and plugs.
Gosselin, 71, loves looking over the mini-village in the evening, under the glow of his red spotlight.
“Everybody is amazed. This week they were installing a fireplace in the living room, (the workers) just couldn’t get over it,” he said.
He fell for the little Fontanini villagers and buildings the first time he saw a set at Gooseberry Barn. Gosselin figured he was too old to start a new hobby. So his wife surprised him with it.
Since then, she and his brother Roland, 79, always have an eye toward new finds. Roland, he said, likes to pick up accessories: a 12-pack of birds or bundle of tiny fruit. “He feels that’s what makes the thing, it’s the details,” Gosselin said.
It takes he and son Scott days to set up and decide. Should the three kings go here or here? The manger there or there?
The motivation: “I want the grandchildren to grow up with the story of Christmas,” Gosselin said. The oldest is 5. “He knows a little of the story. He’ll tell his brother, This is…’ It’s cute to watch. They know Baby Jesus is in the manger, but they don’t know how he got there.”
Everything goes up a week before Thanksgiving and comes down mid-January.
Sometimes they experiment. During one of the first years with the big display, Scott rubbed dish detergent on the white doves and used black light, hoping they’d look ethereal.
“The doves looked like they were plugged in because they were so bright white,” Scott said.
Another year, they decided to stay true to the story and keep Baby Jesus out of the manger until Christmas morning.
Then Scott forgot where he hid the figure.
At a Christmas Eve party, Scott reached into the cupboard and grabbed a mug. “I was pouring some coffee and next thing I know Baby Jesus was floating to the top.”
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