Don and Tina Tate are kids at heart, busy elves who bring a colorful and imaginative “snow village” to life from the comforts of their home each holiday season.

The retired Auburn couple’s living room glows with a large show-and-tell display of miniature trains, planes and automobiles, skaters, skiers and sledders, wildlife and snowy mountain slopes, Santas, snow angels and snowmen, churches, cabins and lighthouses, carolers, fishermen and woodcarvers.

“It’s life,” said 80-year-old Don Tate, a retired Boeing worker and former commercial pilot. “It’s about life, friends of ours who worked for the railroad … many of our friends we’ve known over the years.”

The festive display, which is eight feet long and five feet deep, stands about five feet tall, spread over layers of five customized foam board shelves. The winter scene takes on the character of a “Bristol Township” and the flavor of a Dickens “Christmas Carol” village setting.

At the heart of the display are five trains of different shapes and sizes running separately over oval and rounded tracks. A small airport flickers with runway lighting. Boats and ships grace a harbor.

“To me, they are not just trains. They are a friendship,” said Tina Tate, Don’s wife of 50 years, who has been collecting items for the snow village for many years.

She began to build this season’s winter-scape in October, carefully unpacking the collectables from seven boxes and six trunks.

“It never goes together the same way,” said Tina Tate, a former Boeing worker. “I start at one corner, just let my thoughts come and put it together.”

It’s a process she’s been following for the past 25 years, a family tradition that captured the imagination of their children then and the couple’s grandchildren now.

The Tates also open their River Mobile Estates home to friends and neighbors, who marvel at the massive, detailed creation.

“The ones who come have been fascinated,” Don Tate said.

“It’s fun to see the reaction of others,” Tina Tate added. “It’s been fun to share it, to share the joy with others.”