The History of Snow Village Hallowen
When the Snow Village Halloween was introduced in 1998, we were trying to answer thousands of requests from collectors who loved this holiday where adults and children alike could get a little silly, dress up and go a little crazy, if only for an evening. Collectors were also looking for another holiday where they could create a little Village or tabletop vignette. We knew that Halloween was growing in popularity, with more inside and outside decorating, parties and antics galore! Because parents were not sending their children out to go house-to-house trick or treating, they created an environment within the home for children to enjoy the spooky and friendly aspects of the day.
Snow Village Halloween, The First 10 Years: 1998-2008 Click to Enlarge
Our Halloween Village series, starting with the first introduction, "Haunted Mansion" (1998-1999) with its rotating screen featuring ghosts and witches rotating past the windows in the house created a desire to add more and more animation, sounds, interesting lighting and a little scariness to the introductions.
Village artist, Scott Enter, the primary artist for this series loves the holiday and has always enjoyed decorating his own house for the season. He added the very popular "Grimsly Manor" (1999-2009) which had both spooky sounds and lightning effects created by an interior unit with a blue and yellow flashing light, and computer generated sound chip. When we could no longer get the sound chip, it was time to retire the piece, but many collectors who were just learning about this Village were not happy. Our Creative team answered with another creepy house, the "Mordecai Mansion" (2012-2014.) This piece also used the same technology of an interior unit with flashing lights and spooky sounds coming from the sound chip within. And collectors let us know that there was room in their Village for more than one piece with sounds and animation. The "Haunted Windmill", "Castle Blackstone", "Witch's Brew Pub" and "Dead Creek Mill" were other popular favorites.
The newest edition in this series is the “Monster Mash House” with an audio clip of the 1960s hit by Bobby Pickett.
Our avid collectors eagerly wait to see what the next pieces will be, because 2019 is just around the corner.