BACOLOD CITY – The Pirates of the Caribbean have hit land and are busy unloading treasures to bring cheer to a festive Christmas village alive with the holiday spirit.

They are among the newest additions to a miniature Christmas village that artist-designer Bamboo Tonogbanua has created at his ancestral home on San Juan Street in Bacolod City. The project is on its 14th yearly run and has again grown bigger.

Three ships laden with goods and miniature pirates bustling with activity are now part of the 10-foot high Christmas village from its highest snow-covered mountain found in a 6-meter-by-8 meter room.

Starting Dec. 1 and throughout the Christmas season, Tonogbanua will keep open the village to friends and visitors from 6-9 p.m. by appointment.

The artist said he had always been fascinated by the pirates’ warfare and their costumes and has for some years been collecting miniature figures of them, their weaponry and their ships. “I thought it would be an entertaining and different addition to the Christmas village,” he said.

Other new additions brought home by Tonogbanua from his travels abroad this year are miniature buildings, fun rides and more villagers.

These include a ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, saucer rides, two skating rinks to bring to four those already in the village, a new castle in the Santa section were elf-life houses abound, an auto display shop, an art gallery, a Harley Davidson showroom, a new Tudor-style villa with carriages and a Victorian doll house.

They add fun to the village already filled with Victorian homes lighted up for the holidays, music blaring, villagers dancing, children skating and riding carousels, and cable cars and skiers going up and down the steep mountain slopes.

Trains zoom through four separate railroad tracks that weave through tunnels beneath the village. Fiber-optic lights simulate flowing water and tiny blinking lights in homes and on miniature Christmas trees. Several villagers shop while others gather at churches.

The village now has more than 3,500 miniature objects that grow by the day as Tonogbanua discovers new ones to liven up the holiday mood.

Tonogbanua collects miniatures to recreate scenes from snow-covered Victorian and New England villages on Christmas cards that have fascinated him since childhood.

And he has shared the joy of his miniature village with hundreds of people who visit his home. They have described the village in a visitors’ book as spectacular, magical, fantastic, cool, absolutely amazing, wonderful, terrific, beautiful, superb – but words barely capture the feeling of an actual visit to the Christmas village.

“It is world-class, the best there is, a beautiful Christmas village. Words cannot describe it,” Robert Cordova wrote.

“Wonderful architecture…unbelievable that such very small figures can be arranged so beautifully,” wrote another visitor.

Rich Rodriguez said: “Breathtaking! The experience is priceless and something that I would cherish for the rest of my life.”

Regular visitor Raymund Fuentes wrote: “Year after year, I’m still amazed.”