It's late November, and Christmas has come to Beth Pitkin's sideboard.

Pitkin has started setting up her miniature North Pole -- a ceramic set she's acquired over the years and arranges each Christmas with twinkling lights and puffy snow.

Santa is there, of course, and also his helpers. Some elves roast marshmallows over a tiny ceramic campfire. Others, over at the Antler Inn, stand around with a barmaid who carries a tray of frothing mugs.

This is the time of year when collectors haul out their villages, as they call them, to transform their windowsills, dining room tables, and hearths into tiny townships where everyone has a job to do, and does it with a smile.

"Initially it was just a fun decorating thing," says Pitkin, a 38-year-old marketing director for a safety device company. " Now it's fun because the kids think they're so cool -- it's kind of like part of the magic of our Christmas."

Christmas tableaux of all shapes, sizes and themes have been around for years. The latest wave of ceramic Christmas villages came onto the scene about 30 years ago from a company with the unassuming name of Department 56. Dept. 56's cute little villages aren't just decorations; they're collectibles. That means the company releases new items every year and then stops producing them. Collectors scour eBay and hold conventions to find pieces they've missed.

And they're willing to pay. Karen Peden of Battlefield, Wash., says she's spent more than $53,000 on Dept. 56 villages and accessories.

"Add to that over 2,000 trees and hundreds of accessories by other companies," says Peden, who recently built a 20-foot by 45-foot outbuilding, heated and air conditioned, as a permanent showcase for her huge collection. Trees cost about $10; the buildings can be $100 or more.

"The value of our collectibles has dropped considerably over the years, but it's not the value that keeps us going," says Peden, who often opens her home for tours to raise money for charity. "It's the smiles on peoples' faces, especially the children when they see it on display."

Like many collectors, Dept. 56 addicts deprecate their obsessions. Peden belongs to what she says is the oldest Dept. 56 collectors' club still in existence, the Village Idiots. "It's called that because you have to be an idiot to spend that much money on something," Peden says.

"It's an illness, I tell you," says Pitkin, who owns more pieces than she can fit in her living room. But for Pitkin, it's also a way to connect with her grandmother, who bought her much of her collection over the years. When Pitkin was pregnant with her first child, her grandmother bought her a tiny hospital, complete with mother holding new baby. That piece came out in 2000, the year her son Spencer was born.

Transforming her living room with the villages and their twinkling lights also connects Pitkin to her mother, whom she says makes Christmas magical for her family each year.

"My mom always decorated for things, so I do, too," Pitkin says. "These houses have become part of the magic of my tradition."

When it comes to villages, Dept. 56 is still the biggest name in the business, though several craft stores and other companies sell their own miniatures. Cabela's, the outdoor gear superstore, is offering some tiny log cabins this year. And a host of smaller businesses supply accessories such as trees and animals.

Collectors often sculpt their own backdrops. Dept. 56 marketing director Bill Shadid declined to say how many villages his company sells. Dept. 56 itself employs from 175 to 200 people, and last year acquired Lennox, the china maker, and another company that makes seasonal decorations. Shadid, who attends Dept. 56 collectors' conventions, estimates that about one-quarter of collectors are in their 30s.

"We've got big-time collectors who are under 15," he adds.

Christian Hertzog, 19, sets up his family's display each year because he's an architecture student who enjoys designing things. A neighbor showed him how to sculpt styrofoam mountains with a hot wire to use as a back drop, and he was hooked.

"I was a big model builder growing up, and I just saw this as another model-building session I could take part in during the holidays," says Hertzog, a student at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

The villages have changed over the years; one of Peden's has a Starbucks.

"I want it realistic, so I put everything in there," Peden says. "You have trash cans out at the curb, you have the dogs and cats getting in the trash cans -- you can have it all."