Thursday, December 13, 2012

The Reason For The Season ~ Our Oldest Family Tradition

One of our family's oldest Christmas traditions is setting out a nativity scene.
When I was a little girl, I often heard my mom and dad saying it wasn't Christmas until the nativity was displayed under the Christmas tree. In our house, the nativity set was the most important Christmas decoration, even more important that our Christmas tree.
Every year the nativity set, with it's wooden manger, would be brought out in December. 
 I would love setting it up.
The baby Jesus was separate from His hay filled bed and He was only put in the manger on Christmas Eve.  We kept the nativity scene out until Epiphany, which we celebrated on January 6th.
Our nativity scene is proudly displayed on the dresser in  our Foyer.
The nativity we are displaying this year was given to us by my mother in law many years ago. We displayed it at our previous home in Southern California for many years. It was the only set we had until we bought a painted nativity after we moved to North Carolina. This year, I decided to bring out the unpainted white set. Our youngest daughter hadn't seen it since she was much younger and asked if it was new.


I chose this scripture card from Luke chapter 2 verses 5-7 for this vignette.





Does your family set up a nativity scene or have a special Christmas tradition?

9 comments:

  1. That looks so pretty Pam. What a lovely tradition too.

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  2. I love the entire set up and that unpainted one is so unique. We do set up our Nativities every year. I have a few!

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  3. Your nativity scene is so beautiful. It looks so pretty on your chest in the foyer. We do set up a small one, this year I let my son use it in his house. Hugs, Marty

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  4. Your Nativity is beautiful. I lost my childhood one in a move but have a new one.

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  5. What a beautiful vignette and the most important of all! Every year, Jemma has her own nativity advent book. We read the story every night and she adds one character to the scene. On Christmas eve is Baby Jesus. She loves it and so do we. We haven't found it yet and the whole family is in a panic. I am buying a new one this weekend! It just hasn't seemed "right" without it!

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  6. I love how you set up your nativity near the entryway- you created a lovely vignette!
    That was a sweet tradition your family had. I can't say that we had any particular tradition like this but we always had a nativity set up.

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  7. Hi Pam! I'm pretty traditional myself when it comes to my nativity set. I grew up with one and I will always have one. AND, I had no idea that we were neighbors!

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  8. I grew up having a nativity as well. I have a big one that I love at my house now & last year I bought one that is very much like the one I grew up with. I love your plain white one.

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  9. Beautiful nativity Pam...such a wonderful family tradition...

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