Christmas Village 2009 marks the 49th year of this annual event. It was created in 1961 by the Nashville Pi Beta Phi Alumnae Club to raise money for its philanthropies and to engage its members in an interesting and worthwhile project.

Berenice Miller Denton and Barbara White Fridrich, the first co-chairs of the event, paved the way for the tremendous success of Christmas Village today. They planned a Christmas fairyland, with beautiful and exciting gift displays from local merchants. The show started as a one-day event at the Hippodrome on West End, netting $1,020.

Today Christmas Village is recognized as a premier consumer show in the southeast. Housed at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds in six buildings, more than 25,000 shoppers from TN, KY, AL, MS, and LA can find exceptional items from over 260 fabulous merchants from around the country selling limitless choices of gifts, clothes, jewelry, crafts, holiday decorations, antiques and food. It is the place for one-stop shopping.

Christmas Village 2008 donated $427,000 for philanthropic projects. Cumulative donations over the past 48 years exceed $6.3 million.

Operating Christmas Village requires more than 1,500 volunteer hours from over 200 volunteers each year. Alumnae Club members begin organizing the show in January under the direction of two volunteer co-chairs and a thirty-member board. Work continues through the November event, traditionally held two weekends before Thanksgiving.

This event has brought significant benefit to thousands. Philanthropies funded from the proceeds support special hearing and speech programs at the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center, teens and adults recovering from traumatic head injury and stroke at the Vanderbilt Medical Center Pi Beta Phi Rehabilitation Institute, supplying funds for aspiring artists at the Arrowmont School for Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN and providing scholarship support for college students around the country.