AUBURN – Balanced on four tables, a big sheet of plywood and a couple of cardboard boxes, this Christmas village is more of a metropolis.

About every one of the dozens and dozens of buildings settled in white, fluffy faux-snow twinkle or glow. One hundred-plus tiny, festive folks are staged evenly about. In the mix: running dogs, birch trees, green hedges, push-carts and fences.

The works take up David Bernier’s entire dining room. He and his wife, Anne, spent a weekend setting up the display after Thanksgiving. For the past month, they’ve been eating meals in the living room. (That room has its own holiday touches: a floor ringed with wooden nutcrackers, a ceiling ringed in lights with dangling ornaments and a Christmas tree with a train track set up around it.)

Bernier’s display gets bigger each year.

“My mother always loved holidays,” he said. “I think this just grew from that.”

He and Anne pick out the pieces together. They started in 1995. New this year is a spinning Ferris wheel with music and the sound of people laughing, and a toy factory. Additions don’t have to be from any particular brand; they just can’t look like anything they already own. With 60-plus buildings, that’s a challenge.

Bernier sets up the village by starting in the back, working his way forward. He uses a yardstick to place the people when he can’t reach. There’s not much room to expand unless he builds a shelf to create another tier, and he just might – there’s bound to be more that catches the couple’s eye.

The whole scene gets lit at night, during the day when he’s home on his swing shift from Tambrands and whenever 20-month-old granddaughter Karianna visits.

“She loves the lights and the music,” he said.