Family

My parents visited about a month ago. Although it was early in November, this was their “holiday” visit so we packed the four days full of fall and holiday things, including a much anticipated bike day and a mini-version of a longstanding family tradition — train day.

The Drakes always had a large train set-up, from long before I was born. Every year at the start of the holidays we would gather all our boxes, pulling treasures out of packing peanuts. We would reminisce over different buildings and special pieces — special exclamations reserved for those pieces each of us had worked so hard on. Amid the unpacking we would also visit a “train store” and choose new model kits, replenish our stock of paints and brushes, and purchase any tiny (and extremely expensive) mechanical pieces we needed to get things going again.

Train day always meant that we covered the longest table we owned with newspaper or dropcloth, filled it with paints, paper plates, and paper towels. We would play Christmas music all day long and work through the painstakingly slow process of painting and prepping tiny plastic pieces to be glued together into a house or municipal building or barn.

We would gather our creative juices and create ice skating ponds, Christmas tree lots, camping spots and (best of all) an entire papier-mâché mountain complete with a working ski lift. It was messy and tedious and fun. We would order Chinese food and when it arrived take a bit of a break to settle our hungry stomachs. But it wasn’t long before we were back at it again, working late into the night.

I still remember my very first “model”. Too young to really be able to manipulate the tiny pieces required for HO scale models, my dad took me aside and helped me build a tiny cabin out of matchsticks. I still remember that year and the care and attention and time my father spent helping me with that little building — taking time away from his own projects.

Today, that little matchstick cabin sits on my own train set.

Yep, I have one too. When my oldest brother married, my parents began the tradition of giving a train and starter track for each couple’s first married Christmas. I received mine December of 2010, when we had been married just three months.

Since then, Husband and I have visited a train store every holiday, often selecting a pre-built model simply because we didn’t have the resources to purchase all the paints and knives and special glues required to build our own.

This year, when my parents visited, they gifted us a brand new starter kit of paints etc., purchased our 2013 model and we spent two entire evenings building models. It was simply delightful.

Dad even built us a platform for our train (because when it’s on the floor, Ginger believes it is her job to attack it).

I know model trains are new to Husband, and it might not garner quite the same allure for him as it has for me. Our family may not spend quite so much time, money and creative energy on trains. But I do believe we can pass on this love of model trains to our children someday.

In fact, one of these days my parents plan to hold an auction (with Monopoly money) to allow us to bid on pieces from their massive collection built over the course of our childhoods. What a fun day that will be!

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