A Creche Signifies a New Beginning
As a Child I attended the summer religious school run by our local church. When I was in about third grade, our craft project was making plaster moulds of Mary, Joseph and the Infant Jesus. With a lot of help, we kids mixed and poured, and a few days later labored over painting the small statues.
The figures I took home were the beginnings of our family's creche. That Christmas, we added shepherds with lambs, kings and camels, stable animals and angels. If my parents noticed those finely detailed Italian figures were grander than my summer school contributions, they never mentioned it.
At Christmans, each child at home had a tasks in the tree decorating. My sisters hung the Christmas balls, my brother put on the tinsel - strand by stand-- and I was in charge of arranging the creche.
I took great pride in my role. First I rummaged through the bookcases finding just the right sized books. Then the books were arranged in varying stacks around the base of the tree. Lastly, I covered the whole with shimmering iron flecked "mountain paper," molding the covering to the irregular stacks of books, a "cave" was in the foreground.
Shepherds and magi were carefully posed on mountainsides and near the Baby Jesus. Over the manger scene a heralding angel "flew," dangling by strings on an overhanging branch.
My older sister now has the family creche and when I married, I gathered another. Each creche represents a beginning, a new time in my life.
For some of our readers, memories of childhood and arrangement of the family creche evoke feelings of nostalgia not too dissimilar from mine. At the same time, the joys of collecting a new creche or adding just the right new piece creates continuing joy and excitement.
Our hope is that the creche herald, like the creche we all love, will represent a new in your life, a new pleasure in the sharing of the creche experience.
Rita B. Bocher, Publisher.