Today I wanted to share my Willow Tree Nativity with you and realized that my post from two years ago would be good to repost. I wouldn't change a word of it.
NATIVITY
I have several Nativity sets.
My first one was a gift on my 21st birthday. My family and friends went in together and bought me a Precious Moments nativity. I still have it, though I don't often bring it out as I have limited space.
My next one was a bit more grown up. Fancier and gilded, with wisemen, a camel, an oxen, sheep. I used to put it up over the cupboard in my kitchen because I didn't want it to break.
You've seen my sweet handmade gift from Kayleigh (my daughter in law) and my Fisher Price one. Both are hands on for my grands.
I have one more that my sweet friend Amy gave me. It is a Willow Tree one.
I'm loving this one as I feel like it is simple and humble. Like Mary and Joseph and the shepherds.
The simple people who trusted God's message to them, though it involved risk. Jesus born in a stable, among animals, and filth. Laid in a feed trough, wrapped in cloths.
Shepherds were lowly in social status. They lived their lives among the animals they cared for and made a living from. They were outdoors much of the time.
Can you imagine their wonder? An angel, then a heaven host. "Glory to God in the Highest!"
I love this nativity and the creche that Tim made for me.
The little lights give little light at night, illuminating this simple, humble scene in our kitchen/living room space.
This is certainly not how we would have chosen to send the saviour of the world, but God's ways are not our ways. Jesus knew what it was like to be poor, from a obscure town, a hardworking man, from a humble family.
This saviour knows our need, only He could save.
5 comments:
That was a lovely gift . . . and I love Tim's creche too! Love your musings about the "simple and humble" aspects of this nativity as representative of how Jesus truly came.
Beautiful! I have collected several manger scenes over the years. Rayne set them all up for me this year arranging the pieces just so. The quads and I were sitting at the tea table on Sunday when Trystan looked in the foyer and saw them. She said, "There's the Jesus houses!!" I always put them on the bottom shelf in the foyer where the kids can reach them and arrange and rearrange the pieces as they retell the Christmas story!
The Willow Tree Nativity is beautiful! I love the primitive look of those figurines. I used to collect Precious Moments, and among my hundreds of figurines, I have the nativity scene. When my kids were young, we used it as part of our evening devotions. The buildings and animals were set up in the center of the dining room table. The baby in the manger was put away and wouldn't come out until Christmas morning. The wise men and Mary and Joseph and the shepherd were in different places in the house, and each night after devotions, the kids would move the figures a little closer to Bethlehem, until finally, on Christmas, they arrived. It was a fun way to celebrate Advent. Now, I use a more adult nativity, and I set the whole thing up at once (no one journeys to Bethlehem), but my daughter has the Precious Moments one, and she looks forward to using it with her own kids the same way we did.
It is a beautiful Nativity. Some fine day, I am going to invest in a much different Nativity than I now have. Maybe. 😊 Where do you display this one?
Your words fit the gentle Willow Tree figures very nicely. I have 3 nativity sets, each one is special.
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