Last Sunday and today I worked on cleaning up the mess which was created when the westend of my layout had a catastrophic earth quake. Below is the before photo.
For a couple of years now, I've wanted to pay tribute to my mother who was the spirit of Christmas in our household. She loved everything about the holiday season!! To do so I purchased an MTH Christmas store and began to spruce it up back in 2019. This holiday season, the muse struck and I thought I'd make the Christmas Store the centerpiece of the Westend Neighborhood complete with giving Westend a light dusting of snow.
Of course I'm very particular when it comes to scenery and placement of buildings. My personal process of scenery creation is to mentally visualize the scene before trying out building ( be it figures, vehicles, trees, shrubs ... or whatever I'm working on at the moment ) placements. The process is time consuming, however, I greatly enjoy it all! The short story is that as I was repositioning buildings over the Thanksgiving weekend, I leaned on the shelf with one hand and put a bit too much weight on the shelf. Next think I know the shelf gave way and Westend was demolished. I, however, was not angry or upset! No four letter words were uttered. I felt no regrets. My thoughts immediately shifted to "opportunity has been created." I felt a surge of excitement!
The aftermath of the earthquake that demolished Westend.
Of course the first task at hand ( which I undertook last weekend ) was to pick up all the pieces, reposition the shelf's bracing, and place the shelf back on the bracing. Although the shelf has served the layout for 14 years without a mishap, I made the bracing stronger this time. Live and learn ... lol!
Today's moch up of what is possible. A few days ago, I extended the shelf northward about 10 inches. You can see the extension, in black, in the foreground. This way I will be able to include a Christmas tree lot in front of the Christmas store, shown here with the big snow flake and sign " Merry Christmas" To give myself a better idea of how the end result might look , I placed the Christmas tree, figures, candy canes, snow men and rooftop sign. 
My father made homemade eggnog every Christmas. He used my great grandfather's recipe. This was powerful eggnog!!! Lots of NOG!!!! He didn't spare the liquor. He also made the Swedish hot drink Glug ( pronounced "glueg".) This drink also packed a mighty fine punch!!! Our Christmas Day open houses were quite the event with food, drink, and an 8 x 8 ft electric train layout!! Dad built my brother and me two 4x8 collapsable tables for our trains which came out the day before Thanksgiving each year. So also in tribute to dad, the Little Tavern will be selling Egg Nog and Glug this holiday season. I will print a sign and attach it to the Little Tavern. Btw - I bought the Little Tavern at York in the Orange Hall. Little Tavern was a burger chain indigenous to the Baltimore/DC/Richmond areas. I ate many of their delicious burgers over the years!
There is still lots to do here on the Westend Neighborhood. It may not be done by Christmas, I'm thinking more like July! Christmas in July ... It's a good thing too!! 
Yesterday I cleared this area in preparation of removing the switch along the back wall. I will replace the switch with straight Gargraves track. I've got plans to redesign the siding this switch once served. This all came about as a result of the disaster of Westend. FUN TIMES!!!
