Tiny holiday tributes take form at G&G Supermarkets

Cozy miniature shops, a toy train set, a functioning waterfall and tiny frozen lakes with little ice skaters populate wintertime village that spring up each December in G&G Supermarket stores. This year’s “Carrietown” has new features in the main town and Chinatown segment.

Visitors travel from Bodega, Ukiah and throughout the Bay Area to view the miniature towns created as a tribute to Carrie Gong-Lowe, wife of G&G co-founder Robert Gong.

After Gong-Lowe passed away 12 years ago, her friend Jacqui McMahon created “Carrieville” for the Santa Rosa store. The following year, “Carrietown” was erected at the Petaluma store.

“She liked to put the houses up for decoration at Christmastime,” said Jodie Lau, Gong-Lowe’s daughter. “When she passed away, our friend Jacqui suggested, ‘Hey, why don’t we put up a Christmas village in tribute of your mom? I would be willing to spearhead it, create it and build it.’ So that’s how it started.”

Carrie Gong-Lowe was born in 1937 in Canton, China. She emigrated to the U.S. in her early 20s and through match-making relatives met Robert Gong, who worked at the Penny Fair Market in Cloverdale.

They married soon after and in 1963 moved to Santa Rosa, where they started G&G Supermarket on West College Avenue.

“She and I were buds,” said McMahon, founder of the Wine Country Villagers Club for Department 56 collectors. “I was most honored to (build the village). Over 12 years we have added buildings and accessories, the trees. It’s a little bit of love from everybody.”

Both villages are designed around the ceramic Department 56 buildings that Gong-Lowe enjoyed collecting. Each year, McMahon serves as the main designer and architect for the Santa Rosa village, aided by her husband, Gary McMahon, and friend Patty Connick.

Lau builds Carrietown at the Petaluma store with the help of other G&G employees. Both villages remain on display through mid-January.

The first year’s display was 12 feet by 8 feet, but when Jodie’s Aunt Betty passed away three years ago, the Santa Rosa display grew another six feet to accommodate a Chinatown segment in her honor.

“Aunt Betty loved Chinatown,” Lau said. “I have fond memories of going there with her to go shopping. She said she remembered going to Chinatown with her mom and dad as a child. It was always exciting going to the city for us country folk living in Santa Rosa.”

To make the layouts different each year, McMahon takes inspiration from her travels and begins planning the next year’s village while dismantling the current version.

“I’m always thinking of the villages,” she said. “I want you to feel like you are Gulliver looking down into the city but you could walk it yourself.”

McMahon is on the lookout for new items year-round, like the metallic figures for the new Chinatown scene. She spends the year designing and constructing items like ponds, lakes, hand-painted backgrounds and a hardware store for this year’s display made with items from her own collection.

All told, it takes 120 hours to build the village and several days to assemble it: one day to deliver the boards and crates and configure the base, another for the wiring and about three more days to add the buildings and accessories, McMahon said.

“I always have a joke in here somewhere. One year it was a fisherman trying to sell bait with a bear right behind him. Another one is a dog lifting its leg on a post. This year, one of the polar bears has escaped.”

Taking it down requires just one day.

“We’re really thankful that Jacqui’s into collecting Department 56, she’s really passionate about it,” Lau said. “The love that she puts into this place, you can see in the detail.”

G&G is planning a hot cocoa reception for patrons to see the villages and meet the designers in the next few days. Check gandgmarket.com for more details.

G&G Supermarkets are located at 701 Sonoma Mountain Parkway in Petaluma, 765-1198; and 1211 W. College Ave. in Santa Rosa, 546-6877. Hours are 7 a.m.-9 p.m. daily, closed on Christmas.

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Editor’s Note: This story has been altered to reflect the following correction. Carrie Gong-Lowe was the wife of G&G co-founder Robert Gong.