Building wonder

As the holiday season approaches, two Quad City families are transforming their homes and community spaces with elaborate displays that honor both creativity and tradition. Whether through painstaking restoration or innovative design, they remind us that the most meaningful holiday traditions are built one careful detail at a time.

A village takes shape

Denny Reichenbacher and Anke Maass 

The transformation began a little before Halloween this year, when Denny Reichenbacher started to plan. After 40 dedicated hours, Denny and his wife Anke’s living room has turned into something magical: a three-tiered Christmas village with 148 miniature characters populating 53 intricately detailed buildings surrounded by 106 trees and bushes.

The village’s origin story is as charming as the display itself. When Denny owned Kile’s Hallmark and Gifts in Duck Creek Plaza, the store featured an impressive collection of Department 56 houses. These ceramic buildings were popular collectibles featuring miniature buildings, often utilized as holiday or seasonal decorations. Damaged pieces that suppliers didn’t want returned became Denny’s restoration projects.

“I know how to use glue,” Denny said with characteristic humor, giving broken pieces a second chance at life.

After they married in 2018, Anke contributed her own Alpine Village pieces to Denny’s collection, and the display grew. Now, Anke and Denny scour resale and antique shops for pieces to add to the village.

“Some years have brought significant redesigns like the most recent being changing the direction of the houses. All houses now face outward instead of toward the center,” Denny said. “It requires careful engineering—hiding cords beneath cotton snow layered with faux flakes on a styrofoam base.””

The patience required amazes Anke, who watches her partner work with fastidious care, adding elaborate details like a garage sale, bales of hay, rocky cliffs, even using a pencil to draw tiny motorcycle tracks on the snow dusted roads, and fighting with the waterfall that still hasn’t cooperated despite trial and error with construction paper, blue saran wrap, and rocks.

Among the buildings glowing with warm light, Anke’s favorite is Oma’s Bakery.

“Oma’s Bakery is special to me because my mom was called ‘Oma’ in our family (German for grandmother) and she was a wonderful baker. It reminds me of her,” Anke said. “Many pieces feature German writing—the hotel, the toy store—reflecting my upbringing and the German traditions we hold dear.”

They’re all about building holiday traditions with their families. Anke leans into her German heritage with German-inspired decorations.

You never know what may become a tradition. Sometimes the most meaningful ones begin with broken pieces growing into something whole—a reminder that care transforms everything.

Tinsel and tradition

The Evans family 

The Evans family’s connection to the Festival of Trees runs deep—from Steve’s parents attending the very first event when Cary Grant came to town forty years ago, to the Evans girls dancing on the performance stage, and the family navigating giant balloon characters through downtown parade streets.

Rachel’s sister Karly, who now lives in Nashville, served on the Festival of Trees committee and recruited Rachel and Steve as volunteers years ago. It wasn’t until the two saw a greater need that they begin designing.

“When the festival returned after its COVID hiatus, we wanted to be part of bringing the festival back to its past glory. We wanted to get the festival back on track and be part of the solution. What this organization gives to the arts in this community is incredible and we wanted to help regrow it,” Steve said. “We started entering a tree as designers. These trees are on display throughout the festival and guests can bid on and buy the trees. The money raised supports the mission of Quad City Arts.”

Steve brought creativity and determination; Rachel, her love of crafts and an artist’s eye. A big box of yard sticks sitting in the garage brought inspiration and possibility. The family fashioned them into a tree that was positively illuminating…starting with 500 lights, then 600, and ending up with 1,000 lights on the tree.

“We throw tree ideas around throughout the year. I start getting texts from my dad in December,” Rachel said. “My mom, Michelle, can’t stop thinking about the next year’s design any more than we can.”

Past years brought innovations: a plexiglass tree lit from within, their most difficult; a lattice work tree using Habitat ReStore pieces for easy transport; an advent calendar tree with individually wrapped boxes containing daily surprises and instructions for reusing and recycling on the back, a passion of Rachel’s.

This year, for the festival’s “Tinsel and Tradition” theme, the Evans family is doing something different: a traditional tree adorned with about 350 Hallmark ornaments, collected throughout the past year—their first conventional Christmas tree. In addition to the annual tree tradition, Rachel also submits a wreath design. This year’s design uses paper quilling techniques she learned at the Figge Art Museum.

For the Evans family, the Festival of Trees isn’t just about raising money for Quad City Arts, though over 40 years the event has generated more than $8 million for local arts. It’s about the hours spent side by side, the creative problem-solving, the shared vision of turning ordinary materials into something extraordinary. It’s about knowing when to set the saw down and step back, and when to add just one, or two, or maybe three more strands of lights.