Once upon a time, Dr. Arthur Clarence Wightman, a professor at Randolph-Macon College, created a little scene by gathering some moss and placing it under the family Christmas tree for the miniature animals he collected.
Thus began a Wightman family tradition that this Christmas turned 100 years old. The family dates the beginning of the tradition from 1919, the year Dr. Wightman’s son, W.A. “Skipper” Wightman, married Helen Stone Wightman and created a miniature scene beneath the family’s Christmas tree.
Today, the miniature display bears little resemblance to that first scene. That’s because “Skipper” Wightman made the creation of an elaborate Christmas display a lifelong Christmas-season project. He sought to tell the Christmas story of the birth of Christ in miniature.
“Skipper” Wightman loved Christmas, and his boyish enthusiasm for the holiday never diminished as he added pieces to the display. It gradually grew as his family grew. By the time the four Wightman children had arrived, the display was enclosed in a square with a green and red picket fence. It consisted of ten sections each ten inches long.
During the 1950s, an eight-foot platform that is still being used today was constructed. The elaborate Christmas display has now grown to incorporate 750 pieces, each of which is set up by hand. For one Wightman family member, that takes a day and a half. Usually, though, they work together setting it up before Christmas and can cut the time down to five or six hours.
The scene has two distinct sections. A forest and farmland are on one side, and a town, depicting city activities in the early 1900s is on the other. One constant remains: the Nativity is placed in the center as the family regards it as the center of Christmas for all who celebrate the true spirit of the Holy Season.
Many of the miniature pieces came from Germany. A parade of some twenty antique cars and horse-driven wagons, led by Santa’s sleigh with its reindeer, winds along a gravel road, each piece of which is placed by hand. There are four churches, one with a stork’s nest in its steeple. The stork is carrying a baby.. Always decorating with a sense of humor, “Skipper” put a “shotgun wedding” scene in front of this church..
The display has about 55 people (even one in a baby carriage), 200 various animals and 74 evergreen trees placed throughout. What helps keep the display alive is that many of the pieces are moved around from year to year, and new pieces are added each year.
On the occasion of the display’s 100th anniversary, it is on display in the home of Jim and Sharon Wightman, Dr. Wightman’s grandson and his wife, at 1300 Westover Dr. in Blacksburg.
The display had gotten so popular that each year the Wightmans hold open house viewings so neighbors and friends can enjoy it, too. They serve cookies and hot chocolate and issue an invitation for anyone to join them to enjoy what their family has enjoyed for 100 years.
