A mother and son team have turned their home into a festive spectacle with a 15-foot-long Christmas village that spans two rooms.

Jane Smith, 65, and her son, Roger, 43, spent two months and more than $7,000 to create the display in their Southampton home.

The pair, who said that Christmas time was a big event for the family, said that the village was a tradition that had grown over the years.

Ms Smith said: “I've always been crafty with my hands — and Roger as well — and we’ve just always been a family who do everything together.”

She added: “Christmas isn’t about buying gifts. It’s about enjoying each other’s company and doing things as a family.

“I think this village — us putting it together every year — is just one of those things for us.”

The display, which stretches through the living room and into the dining room, is made out of wood and styrofoam, as well as thousands of ornaments collected over several years.

The village features a ski lodge and a railway, and even a small working television as part of a drive-in movie theatre display.

The Smiths said that they had built a Christmas village almost every year after they saw a similar display in 2013.

They explained that the village started off as a 3-by-2ft display in the corner of the dining room but became more ambitious over the years.

Ms Smith said: “Sometimes we’d be out here until one, maybe two o’clock in the morning.”

The Smiths said that the Christmas village used to be a neighbourhood spectacle and people visited to see the display in an open house complete with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.

Ms Smith said that they passed on the Christmas village over the last two years because of a death in the family and, later, the coronavirus pandemic.

But she added that they wanted to come back bigger and better to make up for the lost time.

Ms Smith said: “I wasn’t really quite sure if we’d do it this year because we’re still in Covid times and we weren’t really quite sure.

“But then we just said, ‘You know what, we’ve just got to go for it’.”

Ms Smith added that some people had seen the village already but admitted that she expected to turn people away given the latest health restrictions, scheduled to come into force today.

But she said that the village would remain on display until the start of March, which would allow the public plenty of time to see it.

Ms Smith added: “We’ve had a couple of people come in who had never seen it before and their response was just amazement.

“We had a little girl stop by and when she came in through the door she went, ‘Wow, this is beautiful’.”

Mr Smith, a technician with Bermuda Air Conditioning, said that the ornaments from every display were saved and stored.

He added that the village was a big hit with his wife and one-year-old daughter as well the extended family.

Mr Smith said that he hoped to make next year’s display even bigger.

He added: “I can’t go any taller, so I’ll have to go outward”.

The Smiths recommended that visitors see the Christmas village at night and asked them to wear a mask and use hand sanitiser.

They also asked parents to make sure that their children did not touch the display.

• To request a visit to see the display, e-mail janesmith0278@yahoo.com