Nativity Scenes, Remembered

Santa's Toy Shop
... the first decoration I pulled out this year ...

I have three creches that I love.

The first is a five-figured 4 inch high glass set. What I love the most about that set was the price, though I can’t remember it now, just that it was ridiculously low. I bought every set that was on the shelf, and then offered them to all of my kids and my sisters and even gave some as wedding presents.

I love this set because I used it to teach Alice the story that begins, “And there were in the same country ….” Alice would often come to my house and take them out of the China cabinet and play with them, moving them back and forth on the mirror that they sit on. I would even know if Alice had come over when I wasn’t home, because when my eyes would pass over the figures in the china cabinet, they had been rearranged. I always place the set just exactly right (for me), and those are not the places in the scene that Alice likes them. 

I feel badly that the figures are clear glass. When I was Alice’s age and re-arranging my mother’s nativity set, the wise men had glitter on their hats and cloaks, and by the time a few seasons had gone by, I think Joseph had been dropped so many times that he had no nose.

 The second favourite  I creche I love was purchased because of the first – me out looking for colour. But that year I couldn’t find Nativity sets anywhere. Again, I was tossed back to my childhood and could remember that in Woolworths, there were small figures that a person could buy, probably $1 each – people richer than us could have a lot of sheep in the flock. We just had one.

At any rate, I went out looking everywhere with Wyona, and she finally told me to try 10,000 Villages for creches which is where I picked up the Peruvian scene. The camel is a llama. That bothers me a little, but it doesn’t matter to Alice when she plays with it. I keep this set in the same place, in the China cabinet beside the glass set. Alice plays with it as well. The llama has already had to have its head glue-gunned on more than once.

... Santa's desk in front of the fireplace ...

And oh yes, that scene now makes Mary a single mother, Joseph having been dropped and the figure now irreparable, gone to rest since even the glue gun couldn't fix him.

St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal is the origin of my third set – in its gift shop. 

Catherine asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her a nativity set of nesting dolls (9 in all) but that I didn’t buy it – I couldn’t imagine the weight of it in my luggage, for one thing, having to fly back to Calgary. 

I was both pleased and surprised when I opened a Christmas package and she had bought it for me. 

... an elephant and a horse on one of Santa's top shelves ...

Not everyone gets exactly what they want for Christmas.


I did manage to bring the weight of it home and I don’t put this creche away after Christmas, I left it out on a chiffoniere, as well, and I have a well-spring of happiness in me when I see Alice taking the pieces apart, lining them up, putting the heads back on the bodies, and nesting the whole figures back into each other.

The three sets of nesting dolls aren’t interchangeable: that is, the tops of one set don’t fit on pieces from the other two sets. 

I have checked. All of the molds were different. Alice can get everything back together. I can’t, so secretly I wrote, A, B, and C on the bottom to help me get it right. 

That was a better solution than beating myself up over the fact I can’t disassemble and reassemble a Christmas decoration that a 7 year old can manage with aplomb.

I also love Santa's Toy shop -- no assembly required.

Arta