Nativity

Now that most of the decorations are up around the house, I can start showing them to you.
I'll start with the Nativity. After all, that's the reason we celebrate Christmas.

This is our Nativity. We have had it for a few years, and every Christmas, it resides on this cupboard, in the lounge room, where everyone can see it.

As well as the little statues, we have 3 lovely Nativity books.

My favourite is "A Child's Story of the Nativity" illustrated by Masha (copyright 1944)

I was given this book when I was about 6 yrs old and have always loved it. The illustrations are lovely soft colour pencil drawings with touches of gold, and the pages are all bordered with gold. To me as a child, it was a beautiful, magical book. Something to treasure for my whole life.

The next is a more recent purchase. Published as a soft cover in 1991, it is "A Christmas Story" by Brian Wildsmith. I bought this for my children (10 and 7 at the time), and it, too, is a beautiful book. Vivid colours, more modern in its art work, it also has gold used very liberally.

The last book is simply called "Nativity" and is published in 1983. It contains several pictures of paintings done by the Masters over the ages, with appropriate text from the New Testament. It's good to see these, and it's interesting to see Mary and the babe depicted with the look of the time in which the painting was painted. Some of them have a very Catholic look to them, which I find quite amusing, given that the family was actually Jewish.