By Mary Jo
Moving to a new area means discovering new things. When I moved to Maryland, among the new things I discovered were sauerkraut for Thanksgiving, and train gardens.
Train gardens, you ask? These are elaborate miniature landscapes with electric trains created at Christmastime, most often in firehouses. They are charming and great fun, and apparently, like sauerkraut, they have German ancestry.
The custom has been traced to 18th century Moravian settlers in the Lehigh Valley of Eastern Pennsylvania. Christmas trees came from Germany, and apparently in some German areas it was customary to build a little village around the base of the tree.