THE WOMANLY ART OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 3 NATIVITY

Here we are on another FREEZING day, in the run up to Christmas, you know the heating was off last week at home and now here I am in the office this morning and we are awaiting oil... is it just me or is life totally miserable without the warmth of the fire and all of the rads zooped up to the highest temperature? I can't fathom what it was like all those years ago, out in the cold, with only a fire for warmth? I am a creature of heat and as such need it surrounding me to get through these frostbitten months! It's just the toe thing, when you start loosing sensation in in your feet, you do tend to think hot countries have a certain calling this time of year!


Just resounding back to all those years ago, my son bounded through the kitchen door on Friday ecstatic with his lovely Christmas creation, he had made a fantastic Christmas nativity scene at school in the previous weeks. Ah it brought such a tear to my eye to see how he had made it, his teacher Mrs C is imaginative at the best of times, she had trotted on down to the local bakery and gathered up a cake box for each of the children. Next stage colouring crazy as the children re-created a starry night sky on the cake box, with the Christmas star brightly glowing on each box. The children had to mould the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of clay and then paint away... last touch? What else but straw see's the Moore household's Nativity scene sorted ala the best local 6 year old artist there is! 

I am not overtly religious but it has to be said when you have Children in the local Catholic school (it is Ireland - choice of schools is minimal!) we sometimes wonder which way to pitch...but traditional cultural festivities like Christmas are a focus of the local Churches all over the country. They share their nativity scenes with communities up and down the country. The Christmas crib was first popularised by St Francis of Assisi, who set up a simple manger scene at the little town of Greccio in Italy in 1224. It included a real manger and straw, a live ox and an ass(well we all know one of those!), and local villagers who took the parts of Mary, Joseph and the Shepherds. The ceremony proved so popular it was repeated each year! And there we have it, each year we are taking a little bit of Italian popularity into our home on the Christmas stretch!


Tomorrow's Christmas blog beckons another symbolic tale,


Caoimhe