Christmas Nativities

Woo-hoo! It's Christmas time! It's basically everyone's favorite time of the year! I love Christmas and everything about it. The fact that everyone is a little bit nicer, a little bit more giving, and a little bit more focused on Christ. I love the meaning, the music, the family, the friends, the food and all of the activities surrounding this holiday.

Normally, Mike and I like to do something every day in December; it's our "Doin' December Daily" month. We don't make it a busy month; we just do at least one Christmas thing a day, even if it's lay in bed and watch a Christmas movie or drink a special Christmas drink. This year though, we aren't doing too much that involves us leaving our home. We have a wee little one who we don't want catching any illnesses, so we are being overprotective, but it's okay - the doctor's told us to be.

So, Saturday night, we set up our nativities! For the love! I LOVE NATIVITIES. Specifically nativities from places I have visited, nativities from around the world. I haven't been able to get one from every country that I have visited, because let's face it, sometimes it is impossible to find a nativity to purchase, especially in summer months, heck, it was hard enough finding one in December in Russia. But alas, I have a few.

I have never been able to display them before, but since we have a bit more room this year, we decided we should bring them out. I was excited to show them off for the first time, hence the blog post :). Without further adieu - my nativities from around the world!

Uganda Nativity:

Kenya Nativity:

Russia Nativity:

Bahama's Nativity:

Cozumel Nativity:

Mexico City Nativity:

Dominican Republic Nativity:

and because we needed one more nativity to fill our shelves - this is a nativity that I made back at a church youth activity - so it's a made in the USA "United States Nativity":

Our most recent addition comes from Italy; but we purchased it in Leavenworth, Washington with the dream that one day we will go to Italy, and we won't have to worry about finding an Italian nativity.

We loved it because it has a "Nativity Stories" book that tells the story of each of the figurines - from Baby Jesus and each angel to the stray dog that roamed Bethlehem. Some of them include scripture, but others just let the imagination run wild, as if who would we have been like had we been alive back then :). Mike and I decided it would be fun to read a story each night leading up to Christmas so we got the book too (obviously).

And that is the start of my 'one-day-will-be-huge-around-the-world-nativity-collection' :)