Ages ago, my mother found this quaint little "Jones & Co" house from the Dickens Village collection of ceramic houses produced by Department 56. As my grandma's last name was Jones, my mother thought she would enjoy this. Upon opening it Christmas morning, Grandma exclaimed, "So, what is it, a nightlight?" As it happens, it was one of the seven original houses in what is now a thriving collectable enterprise. Grandma, who originally dismissed the item, went on to collect a whole village. Grandpa built her a table for a year round display of her village.

When the waters from Hurricane Katrina filled her house in Chalmette, Louisiana, they stopped about an inch or two below the table that housed her collection. Not having room in her new apartment, she told us we could keep whatever we wanted. On our first salvage trip after being let back into the city, I pulled my favorite pieces. Going into the moldy, musty attic to find the right boxes and boxing them up on a still damp sofa until my body could no longer take the heat and the toxins in the air, I took only retired pieces. Mom and Dad went back later to pack up the rest until everything salvageable from the village was safely pulled from the house. I let everything sit and air on my back patio for a week. That still didn't remove the smell from the boxes. The smelly boxes are now stored in my attic, but the pieces have aired out nicely on display in my house. I try not to think what I might be breathing in.

As for the lights, the original ones did not survive having been covered in mucky goop from dangling into the waters. As luck would have it though, I have 20 houses and Dept 56 has a 20 house light set. It works out perfectly.