nativity tour

One of the joys of decorating for Christmas is the special memories that accompany opening the packages that are kept tucked away the other eleven months of the year. As I was putting out the decorations I thought about their stories and mine. So here it is...the first leg of the nativity tour.

    Christmas 1976 was our first married Christmas. We lived in a small apartment in Fullerton, California.  We were saving money for a down payment on a house, and Doug talked me into foregoing a Christmas tree since both of our families lived within an hours drive and we were spending the holiday between the two of them. As we got closer to Christmas, I ached for a tree. Just a little one, a very inexpensive one. Then one afternoon I saw a tree for $3 at the grocery store. It was about 3 feet tall and I could imagine popping and stringing popcorn for the decorations.

I brought it home, and we even got a strand of lights for it. One evening Doug's family came to visit us. How his brothers laughed at our "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree! But it only made me love it more.

Another evening we decided to go to a Christmas craft fair at the convention center in Los Angeles. It was huge. We walked around for hours and then Doug said that we should choose just one thing to commemorate our first Christmas. But he let me choose

            Los Angeles, California

...and that was the beginning of a lifelong collection of nativities.

When we lived in England, I went on a field trip with Cherylyn's class to the V & A Museum in London one day early in December. I saw a nativity that I thought  was just beautiful.  Anyway, I didn't buy it, and I went home and thought about it and truly regretted my decision. A couple of weeks later, Melanie and I went to London for one of her regular orthodontics appointments. The dentist's office was not far from the museum so afterwards, we went to the gift shoppe. I was surprised and delighted!

   London, England

I don't know how they made the clothes so that the fabric has been stiff all these years.When I unpack it, I think of those trips the two of us made together on the train. A dentist appointment was almost a whole day affair in any scenario, so we often took little side trips like this one together.

I was invited to a Rock Concert by DirecTV. Christmas comes in the summertime in South America and one afternoon we walked around a street fair in Rio.

       Rio de Janero, Brazil

I saw this amazing nativity made entirely of shells. I couldn't imagine how I would ever get it home without breaking it. However, my husband is a master packer and carrier...luckily for me.

Mostly, Doug traveled without me. Sometimes he brought home local crafts, and this is one of my favorites. It is made entirely of clay. All of the tiny pieces are very intricate. I keep it out all year. 

   Bogota, Columbia

Miguel Angel Vargas Munoz is the artist.

Sometimes when the girls and I would travel to the northern part of England to do genealogy, we would take day trips away from Doncaster, which was where we always stayed, and visit some of the places where our research was leading us. I got this in a gift shoppe on one of those adventures. I think it was in Hull.

    Northern England

The manger has disappeared and the backdrop is falling apart, but I love the memories associated with this piece and can't bear to give it up...even though it was actually made in China.