Sure, Christmas songs are on the radio, trees and tinsel are in stores, and Christmas lights have been up since before the snow came.

But to some, the Christmas season doesn't truly start until the lights go on at Ogden's Christmas Village, a collection of 59 sometimes-whimsical, sometimes-historical cottages.

The smaller-than-human-scale cottages have been installed in Ogden's Municipal Gardens, creating a miniature village where elves, snowmen and Santa are in a perpetual state of getting ready for Dec. 25.

Since 1962, people have made Christmas Village a tradition, and new families join the tradition every year — not only for the cottages, but also for children to get a chance to meet Santa in the one human-sized cottage near the gardens' entrance on 25th Street.