A Unique Christmas Horror

There was a mechanical Christmas Eve Church filled with moving mechanical dolls on display today at the La Porte County Historical Society Apparently this is a well known Xmas tradition for many La Porteans, and it was my first time seeing it today.  A local Mortician created this himself, by hand, in 1947, after he survived WW2. Apparently he was in the Battle of the Bulge and he made a promise to the Powers that Be that if he could survive the battle he would make something special for his hometown, La Porte, IN, that would have special meaning to the citizens. So when he came back from the war he made this giant mechanical church filled with a congregation of dolls, with a moving choir and pastor, with recorded warbling music, lights and a sermon narrative for the pastor. He would place it outside on the lawn in front of his funeral home and people driving by would pull over and go watch the mechanical church in front of the funeral home and listen to it's music and sermon. It's in the museum now, and many folks come back to visit it every Xmas. I find it a little uncanny that a mortician would create a miniature church filled with moving dolls and place it on the front lawn of his funeral home at X-mas ... but that's just me. The folks around here just love it. It is an impressive feat of engineering and mechanics.
You stand outside of this thing, and there's nothing going on outside of it, all the action is tiny and small and going on inside. It's still and unmoving on the outside and looks like a miniature church model, but when you peer through the little door or windows, there's all this moving and action inside.... I wonder how this was a metaphor of his work preparing corpses for viewing and burial? I'm sorry, but I just can't get away from the psychology of a mortician creating this secret world trapped inside of something that you have to peer into. It kind of freaks me out a little. It's all of the lifeless dolls... there are dozens of them sitting in the pews, smiles frozen on their faces for all eternity... like corpses in coffins with the warbling music in the background.... so strange. I am sure now that I have offended every La Portean that I know who may have loved this thing since their childhood... I apologize. But it's just so strange that a Mortician made this secret Christmas Eve Church world filled with dozens of mechanical dolls. I don't think I'd be freaked out by it at all.... except that it was made by a mortician and displayed outside in front of the funeral parlor. When I was a little kid I used to hold my breath when we drove by a funeral parlor because I was terrified of ghosts and thought that every funeral parlor had ghosts in it... this would have sent me running and screaming in terror as a child. If it had been made by a librarian and put in a library or a shopping mall, or even a school I would have been enchanted... it's the connection it has with death, and all the frozen-faced little dolls... that's what gets me. I hate clowns, but it wouldn't bother me half as much if a CLOWN had made this thing.... it's that a mortician made it! What kid in their right mind would run up on the lawn of a funeral parlor to watch this thing?!?! And the mortician built it as a promise to God, because God spared his life in the Battle of the Bulge. War does strange things to men.
Anyhow, this has all the makings of a horror movie... and it makes me think that the people of LaPorte are very brave stock if generations of them have been running up to the funeral home to be enchanted by this thing when they were kids. Merry Christmas!