This is a page of items for that special time of year! This would not be an Architectural Supplies For Sims page without some historical facts & figures, so I intersperse with some historical origins of today's Christmas traditions which I researched for a magazine in 2001.

Some of the items here may be from other themes but just "snowified" or sometimes even "Christmasified" for easy conversion to "Wintrify" your existing games.

Four Illuminated snowy trees - two night-lighting trees ,The Isambard tree in planter and the Winter Walnut tree with lights (shown below). The tree on the far left has coloured lights although this picture does not really show it. Find these under Lighting. The Isambard coloured tree lights with snow can be found under Build Mode / Walls. They are pictured with the Winter Walnut tree from the Marius set and the Snow Rug from 7DeadlySims http://www.7deadlysims.com - though please note that the snow rug is also included with the Marius set, with the kind permission of Claw.

During the Middle Ages in Europe, bible stories were often taught by way of Miracle Plays. For the feast day of Adam & Eve on Dec 24th, an evergreen in the middle of winter was the logical choice for a prop to symbolise the tree of temptation, decorated with apples as the forbidden fruit. People often set up such a tree in their homes, often decorating it with baked figurines of Adam, Eve and the serpent. Sometimes flat wafers symbolising the forgiveness of sins in Communion were also hung from the branches.

Martin Luther, the Reformation leader (1483 - 1546) is said to be the first person to have decorated a Christmas tree with candles. One Christmas Eve, he was walking home through the woods. As he gazed at the clear, starry sky in reverent meditation, it looked to him as though thousands of tiny stars had settled on the branches. He then cut a tiny tree and took it home where he decorated it with small candles to recreate his experience for his family - and later public congregations.

Icicles, three Garlands, Christmas Card Holder & two Christmas Wreaths.

The icicles and garlands twinkle at night. I think you will need the Christmas Lights from SimsPlus for these to work, but as they took them off the site for some inexplicable reason, I asked if I could include it in my zip - which I do with grateful thanks. For the icicle image, I used the sprites from the Vacation Lodge ceiling lamp, and I am very pleased with the effect!

I also made my first, crude, foray into the world of Z buffers to make the garland - it was hit and miss, but eventually I got there. These lights can go over windows, doors and pictures - and can be placed anywhere, not just next to a wall - although icicles stuck on their own in the middle of a room look very surreal indeed. Windows, floor and arch pictured are from The Isambard theme.

When your friends, neighbours and other sims send you Christmas Cards, where do you put them? On a patented Bunny Wuffles Christmas Card Holder, that's where! Show off your larger cards in style for ALL the neighbours to see.

Mix 'n' match the garlands with the first one for a random flashing lights effect. As before, these lights can go over windows, doors and pictures - and can be placed anywhere, not just next to a wall. The wreaths are cloned from the Torch sconce, and after hours struggling with the Z buffers, my many exhausted thanks go to Raveena and Trillian for their fixing them for me.

Holly is often regarded as a leftover from pre-Christian times, but its use at Christmas has long held meaning for Christians as well. Early Christians of Northern Europe decorated their homes & churches with its branches, which they called Holy Tree because the sharply pointed leaves and the red berries helped them to meditate on the crown of thorns and the blood shed during Jesus' crucifixion. Because the plant is evergreen and produces berries even during the harshest winter, holly is used by Christians today to meditate on the love of Christ which can endure the hardest trials of life and offers eternal life to the believer.

Four Vintage Christmas images framed for your walls - two Country Churches and two Angels

Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's German husband started the trend for Christmas trees in England after putting one up in Windsor Castle in 1848. America & Canada soon followed, with Franklin Pierce being the first US President to have one in the White House in 1856 for a group of visiting Washington Sunday School children.

Seven fully tileable mix 'n' match wall sets so your minimalistic sims can enjoy a Victorian Christmas too. Picture rails, decorative plaster coving and a skirting board give that Victorian feel to the more modern colourwashed wall treatment, while the highly collectible Victorian Christmas Holly & Ivy card die-cut "scraps" pinned to the picture rail give that authentic decorative touch. These walls are slightly different from the ones in the other screenshots, as I made the picture rail a bit higher so that picture frames don't overlap it any more.

When Dutch settlers in America told of the legend of St Nicholas, this soon became vernacularised to the name Santa Claus. Why? Because the Dutch spoke of him as Sinterklaas - and had no English translation for the name. St Nicholas was a real person, and lived from 270 to 310AD. Born an only child of a wealthy family from Myra, Turkey, he was orphaned at an early age, grew up in a monastery and became a priest. Many stories are recorded of his enormous generosity as he gave his wealth away cheerfully and anonymously to the needy; the most whimsical are of his dropping bags of gold down cold chimneys in freezing weather, and leaving gold coins in stockings hung out to dry overnight.

Selection of one-tiled snowy trees for hillsides - these don't light up or need watering -

When we think of Santa Claus, we think of him as a jolly, overweight individual dressed in red and carrying a sackful of toys. But this is only a recent depiction of him which originated in 1868, drawn by Thomas Nast for the cover of the Christmas edition of Harper's magazine. The image was later reinforced very strongly worldwide by Haddon Sundblom's annual Christmas adverts in the National Geographic magazine for the Coca-Cola company, of which the first appeared in 1931. Before Thomas Nast's famous artwork of him, Santa Claus (or Saint Nicholas, as we have already learned) was nearly always depicted as wearing a crown of holly to remind people of the crucifixion and kingship of Jesus, and distributed gifts to remind believers of the scriptural importance of charity. Even today in many parts of Europe, depictions of Santa Claus show him wearing white robes to symbolise Jesus' purity and sinlessness; green robes to symbolise the eternalness of Jesus, or blue robes in honour of Jesus' mother Mary as the Roman Catholic Queen of Heaven. Many early European images of Santa Claus show him in obedient deference to the Angel Gabriel, or the Holy Family and sometimes even in a nativity scene, giving worship to the Christ-child.

Installation

Unzip to a temporary storage folder, and you must move the files accordingly as below (this assumes your game is installed on your C: drive's "Program Files" folder):

• Files ending in .wll to C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\GameData\Walls
• Files ending in .flr to C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\GameData\Floors
• Files ending in .iff to C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\GameData\UserObjects