@brittarnhild
My new nativity is finished.
The latest addition was born last night, the little shepherd boy Samuel, and his dad.
Over the holidays I hope to add some sheep, and may be a few other figurines.
The story has been ready for more than 2000 years.
In those days.......
But the shepherd boy Samuel´s story is not written yet.
In those days the little shepherd boy Samuel.......
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@brittarnhild
Every December I set up a nativity village. Today is Santa Lucia Day and Lucia arrived, with her candle wreath.
When travelling I always look for small houses and figurines to add to the village, and slowly, slowly it is growing.
A new addition this year is a palazzio and a gondola from Venice. I bought it near the Rialto Bridge but was told that it was made somewhere in Africa, of left over materials.
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@brittarnhild
Last week two different students at a college here in Trondheim contacted me. Both asked if they could come and take pictures of my nativities. I said yes to both :-) Since then I have been busy setting up my 100+ nativities.
The first student came today,
and yes, all the creches were up in time.
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and
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@brittarnhild
Thanks for the comments Ardi and Marti.
I hope I can live up to your expectations.......
By the way, the last few days two different photographers have contacted me to ask if they can come and photograph my nativities. Of course I said YES to both :-)
I´ll keep you updated.
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Other blogs I have updated today:
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@brittarnhild
Every year there is a nativity exhibition in Oslo. Deep down in the basement under and behind a Christian bookstore you fin d a few small room called The Catacomb is where you find creches from all over the world during the month of December.
Terje and I visited the exhibition a couple of days ago. Three small rooms with nativities from the real human size down to tiny little miniatures.
The exhibition is impressive.......
.......but since I now have more than a hundred nativities myself, I must confess I don´t find it as impressive as I used to :-)
Last December I opened The House in the Woods one afternoon displaying my own collection. I am not able to do that this year, but when all the creches are out, which might hopefully happen during this weekend, I plan to post a note on facebook that friends are welcome to come and have a look.
I might also do a live video thing on facebook, walking around in the house, filming my nativities. If you are on facebook it might be a good thing to like and follow the page "Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods" :-)
By the way - some weeks ago I started a blog I call Vandring gjennom året, A Walk Through the Year. It is in Norwegian, but I know that some of you might find it interesting. Welcome over.
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@brittarnhild
Finally December is here. The darkest month, and also the month filled with light. I arrived home this afternoon to the first advent basket, which was awaiting me on the coffee table in the living room. A basket filled with the first Christmas decoration items. Old readers know about my advent basket, new readers will get to know it as the 24 days of advent unfolds. But a very short describtion of the idea - from my childhood I am used to advent and Christmas as two different seasons. Advent is purple, with lights and the advent wreath, Christmas si red and green, with all the different Christmas ornaments, special food, carols and everything connecting to the festive season. Traditionally here in Norway we decorate the Christmas tree and the house for Christmas on the night before Christmas Eve, lillejulaften, or Little Christmas Eve. With four kids and a full time job this meant too much stress, so many years ago I started to decorate a little every day, from the first of December. Then I found an old basket, every night in December I filled it with.......a Christmas quilt, a snow globe, a Christmas magazine, an angel, a nativity, a Christmas cd and so on. Rarely anything new, just old stuff from my collections. (Yes, I am a collector.......to the rest of the family´s despair)
As soon as I have finished this post, I plan to make myself a mug of tea, put the first Christmas cd on, hang the first angel......well, empty the basket. And day by day Christmas, the Yuletide, will fill The House in the Woods.
This year´s first nativity is the most reacent one in my collection, from a market in Georgia. I had been looking for nativities during all our days there, but also knew that the orthodox church don´t actually have any. Then, one of the last days, I saw this couple and a donkey and had to ask: "Is this Mary and Joseph, or what?" Our guide Ia told me that the man and the woman actualy are literary figures from some writing by a Georgian author. She wrote down both his name and the name of the two people (so far I have not managed to find out anything about them, but I will continue my search).
I left the market quite disappointed, but could not forget the "Mary", the "Joseph" and the donkey, and before we left the town to go with our grop to have lunch, I ran back to the stall and bought them. May be they were not meant to be a nativity, but now they have become one :-)
By the way, Georgia has a million absolutely lovely things made by felted wool.
I wanted to bring it all home, but there were not enough room in our suitcases. I did fill both mine and Terje´s to the brim though.
In the photo above you see one of the street artists working on a pair of slippers.
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@brittarnhild
I have collected nativities since 1998 when I bought a native one in Haiti, a coconut formed to be the manger, small clay figurines. I had a few creches already before 1998, but it was the coconut one which made me actually start a collection.
A growing collection also meant that I started to read about nativities and their development since St. Frances set up the first one in Assissi a long time ago. This reading and also my growing collection created a dream in me to start making a nativity village. Just like the ones they have in Provence, in many part of Italy and probably a lot of other places. But somehow I never got myself around to actually make one.
Then, in Berlin last week, when I met a street vendor at one of the Christmas markets, who sold old village houses and a wide variety of figures, I knew a new path had started for me. The path towards my own nativity village.
Yesterday I bought the stars for the sky over the village, and with good help from Terje, soon the village was all ready.
My Provence creche is there, somewhere in the middle of the village. Hard to see on this picture.
You can read more about this nativity here.
And the one from Haiti is here.
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@brittarnhild
Do you know that Napoli (Naples) has its very own street for nativities, for presepes?
I have been dreaming of going there for years, though visiting the city of Napoli has kind of not been part of the dream. Garbage, mafia, pick pocketing haveb been words connected with Napoli, and none of these go well with my kind of travels.
My friend Brit knew about my dream, and one day during our days in Terracina she and Hans decided to take us to the "dangerous" city.
It turned out to be a most glorious day.
We saw no garbage at all, but set our eyes on flowers......
dolce......
vespas.......
and pizza.
You can´t stay in Napoli without eating pizza!
And the presepes, the nativities of course.
Can you imagine a street filled with artisans, studioes and shops, all with the Christmas cribs as their theme. I could not.
Now I can.
My father in law gave me some money for my birthday. I used them to buy a presepe from Napoli.
I know that Napoli is not always a sunshine tale. Last night we watched a story in our news about the mafia digging down hazardous waste in the area, causing too many young people to develop cancer. I know many people have lost their money, their cradit cards, their cameras and so on in Napoli.
But our day in Napoli will be kept in my heart as a sunny memory :-)
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Woops, I almost forgot,
the winner of yesterday´s Blue Garden Letter is UP.
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