There are lots of details – from carolers and coaches to a holiday railroad train – to see in Charlotte Wendel’s Christmas village collection on display at MAFAC. Wendel said this is the first time in several years she’s been able to display the village, and she was happy to get to share it with visitors.

MARSHALL — A special holiday window display has been catching eyes on Third Street this week: a Christmas village with dozens of buildings and tiny details. Charlotte Wendel said she hoped the village, made up of buildings and figures she has collected over years, would bring some smiles to visitors at the Marshall Area Fine Arts Council Arts Center downtown.

“I think everyone will enjoy it,” said Wendel. The display of Lennox Christmas village buildings and figures fills the gallery window, with everything from houses and shops to a railroad line. “It’s the first time I’ve had it up in about eight years.”

“There’s quite a history behind this village,” Wendel said of the collection. It all traced back to happy childhood memories with her brother.

“I had a play village and my brother had a model train,” Wendel said. Together, Wendel and her brother would set up the village and train set, using rugs to make landscape features like mountains.

As an adult, Wendel told her husband the story of her childhood village.

“He knew how much I missed it,” Wendel said. So, he got Charlotte a set of nine Christmas village houses for her birthday. “It was something he wanted to do for me. He was so excited.”

Over time, Wendel’s village grew to include about 150 buildings, she said. Her secret to displaying them was to arrange the village on three different levels. There would be a well-to-do area of town overlooking the rest of the village, she said.

In the past, Wendel had set up her village collection in the basement of the Episcopal church in Marshall. This year, MAFAC asked Wendel to bring some of her village collection to the Arts Center.

“It is a work of art, trying to get things put together,” she said. Not all of her collection would fit in the available space.

While the window display doesn’t have the same tiered layout that Wendel has used for the village in the past, she said there are lots of little details people can spot among the buildings and figures of people and animals.

“There’s been a lot of kids in here looking at the village,” Wendel said. It’s something she loves to see.

Wendel said she also hoped the village display would be a fun part of MAFAC’s Holiday Open House on Saturday. The event is a chance for people to check out gifts and other items by local artists, as well as displays at the MAFAC gallery, live music and treats like cider and cookies.

The open house will be from 11-4 p.m. on Nov. 29, at the MAFAC Art Center.