Like many awesome Minecraft ideas, the idea of a Christmas village starts out great but it doesn’t take long to run out of steam. A lot of creativity is required to do this since the game gives you very little to work with. You need to find the right location and put in a lot of work to get it right. For those thinking of undertaking the challenge, this guide will help you come up with some ideas for creating your own Christmas village in Minecraft.
Finding A Location
You absolutely need to find a snowy location. A spruce forest is normally best as you will have snow and plenty of wood to harvest. You could use an icy tundra if you wish, but it feels like a spruce forest is the best place to go as the mix of snow and tall trees fit the Christmas image the best.
The second thing to consider is the villagers. The standard Minecraft village doesn’t really look the part but you need villagers. Who wants a lovely Christmas village that’s a lonely ghost town. Your village needs to be bursting with people moving around the place. Finding an existing village is important. You can demolish the entire thing, so long as you make new houses for the villagers it will be fine. Just make sure you don’t demolish the entire thing at once or you could be left with no villagers.
Since you can name villagers, you should consider giving them all their own unique elf names. There is a generator on the site you can use to come up with lots of Christmas elf names. You can also use the android app if that’s easier for you.
Buildings to create
Once you have a perfect spot, you need to start filling the area with festive buildings. The most obvious fortress style building will be Santa’s house. It will be the primary building that will overlook the village, but it’s entirely up to you.
If you are stuck for ideas, here are some things you can build in your Christmas village.
- Santa’s grotto
- Giant Christmas tree
- Post office (for all of Santa’s letters)
- Stables for the reindeer
- A little village of houses for all of your elves
- Gingerbread house
- Ice skating rink
- Ice tower
- Christmas maze
- Frozen water fountain
- Cozy pub with a fireplace
- Log cabin
- Ski slopes
- Yeti cave
- Ice sculptures
This video playlist has some useful videos that will show you some great building ideas and some decorations tips if you decide to go all out with a Christmas village.
Decorating your village
Decorating your village is always a hard part. You have a load of buildings that you now need to decorate inside and outside to make the place feel more natural and alive. The video playlist above will give you plenty of ideas but the best thing to do when in doubt is to use snow.
Stacking snow with some tree bushes will really fill out flat areas and is really easy to do. Combine it with a few snowmen and you have yourself a village that no longer looks bare but you don’t have to put much work into it to make it feel less bare.
There is an official Christmas texture pack for Minecraft that will give you candy canes and lots of other items that are festive. Using this is a great idea but you can also try and go with the natural look. There will be plenty of custom texture packs and mods if you are playing on the PC.
