The best £1.99 I've ever spent

What a wonderful story

What a lovely post paddyann I hope your little granddaughter plays with the set for many years. I have a wooden nativity set, bought in Russia in 2007 and my granddaughter loved playing with that each Christmas. Not this Christmas though as she is living in New Zealand at the moment, but they may be back next year and I think she’ll still play with it then.

I second that, Blossoming!
paddyanne, we have a wooden crib that we bought at Waverly Market about 30 years ago. I think it cost about £7, which we couldn't really afford. The original figures are also plastic. Over the years we have added to it, buying items on our annual trip to Rome, including the holy turkey, the holy goat and the holy pizza maker. Nothing is in proportion!

We spent years looking for the holy pizza maker, which is an traditional, Italian crib figure. My five year old granddaughter is fascinated by the crib, spending hours playing with it. Unfortunately, last year she broke the goat's leg, so he has to lie in the stable. It is light up by a £1 string of lights, bought from Poundland. other pound shops are available.

The first thing she asked last week, when she was helping with the tree, was why the crib wasn't out.
Mr MDoll had searched the loft to no avail. It took two days to find it under all the boxes of my clothes! ?

However paddyanne, I can top your £1.99 bargain. How does a crib with ceramic figures, bought for €1 in Prague sound?
I will try and post photos tomorrow.

Thank you for starting this gentle thread.

I've often laughted out loud at the visitors the Holy Family get ,we've had cowboys and aliens and barbies and disney princesses,when my son was about 2 he used to share his Thomas the tank engine trains with Jesus because he didn't have any toys .Its amazing how much enjoyment they've all had from it and hopefully wee madam will keep playing with it for a very long time

Marydoll Ceramic ! Thats posh .I bought my daughter a lovely set in Ireland when she was pregnant with our only grandson and her children played with it too.I vivdly remember buying it as she had just phoned me to tell me she was expecting a wee boy,her dad didn't want to know before the birth so it was a whispered call in the shop doorway

I have a white porcelain nativity set that is very small, the figures being about 3" tall. I also bought it quite cheaply years ago, but I can't even remember how much. And yes, the GC all love to re-arrange the characters.

I had a clear plastic angel blowing a trumpet. I had originally bought her thinking she would be a tree topper, but she was too heavy, and her trumpet broke, just near her hands. This resulted in 'The beer angel', since it did indeed look like she was holding a beer bottle to her mouth. The boys insisted in keeping her, since they were teens at the time and this was the height of hilarity for them, but eventually I did recycle her.

Imagine this angel, with the trumpet broken...

paddyann54 what a lovely story?
Not the same, but my elder son made an plaster angel at school when he was 6.
Too heavy for the tree, and, well, should we say 'enthusiastically' painted, it still comes out every Chistmas and stands on mantlepiece.
Makes me smile every year.

Oh and I meant to say, said son is now 39!

I had a nativity set which the children and I made out of toilet rolls and bits of wool/ fabric / cardboard boxes which came out for several years. This has given me an idea for something to make with the GC.

My parents bought me a wooden stable crib back from Oberammagau in 1969 and I bought a basic plastic crib set of madonna, child and St Joseph.

Over the years DC added a plastic donkey with broken ears they found behind the radiator when we moved to another house, and over the years other waifs and strays have been added. We now have angels, and a star and the crib set is placed in the hall in the big open fireplace, so everyone can see it when they come to the door.

I’m 67 and I’ve attached a photo of my precious paper crib bought by my Dad in Woolworths when I was a toddler. It’s proudly displayed every year then I fold it flat and pack it away again for next year. It cost 2 shillings.

I also have a set of small crib figures which were passed onto me by my Mum. She rescued them from a hospital bin in the early 70s. She was an auxiliary nurse in the children's ward. The 2 ward sisters disagreed every year on the Christmas display. The older sister wanted traditional and the younger insisted on a fluffy snow scene with penguins etc.

They compromised and had both every year till the older ward sister retired. Sadly the younger one promptly dumped the crib figures in the bin. My Mum retrieved them and brought them home and they've been proudly displayed every year for almost 50 years.

My children loved them as do my grandchildren. They love to rearrange the crib figures and I sometimes find a superhero or one of the Teletubbies tucked up beside them!

That is so lovely Grannywanny. Looks in amazing condition, much treasured. Lovely stories here.

Grannynannywanny
An antique of the future

Your OP has really made me smile, paddyann54. It's a lovely story.

Our crib figures have been in place for the last two years. DGC enjoy playing with them every time they come. I built a stable for them and improved it last year. I wonder if it is the same one as Paddyanne 45 has. It is plastic with a blue angel.

Lovely story, OP!
Gdcs love the knitted Nativity I made for them a couple of years ago. I once found Gdd1 (then coming up to 4) ‘marrying’ one of the Wise Men to one of her Barbies!

I keep it here in between Christmases, we have more room, but had to do some running repairs before setting it up again this year. Ceiling and roof of the stable have always been a problem - as I said to dh, what’s the use of having a (retired) civil engineer for a husband, if he can’t work out a way to fix them??
Luckily a gun-shaped stick, found by Gds a couple of visits ago, came in very handy!

Your knitted Nativity figures are lovely Witzend

Lovely stories.

My lovely father in law made in (the eighties) several Christmas churches complete with minister and choir (carved out of dolly pegs)
The church it's self was made from bits and pieces and then painted complete with snow, ours also has a snowman ⛄

The inside of the churches are lit, so when the doors are open, all the hand carved pews and pulpit can be seen .

As with yours Paddyanne my children, grandchildren and any visiting children love to play with the wee carved people.
My daughter and and son have inherited their own churches from family members who have passed on.

My grandson's will point to their church and say proudly to visitors 'our great grandfather made this all by himself'

My darling daughter put a pig in the our crib , a priest who was a friend came to bless the crib and very kindly explained there
wouldn’t have been a pig there.

She said , yes there would, Noah saved them.

I don’t have a large Nativity , but some years ago on a trip to Madeira I bought the tiniest one carved inside a walnut shell. I love it.

Lovely story, paddyann ?

What lovely heartwarming stories and such beautiful nativity scenes.

Our crib came home from Spain many years ago and brings back many memories of our time living there. Every town/village in Spain has a public crib called a "Belen" built usually in a public hall which can take a couple of weeks at least to build. Our local one was in the Town Hall on a specially constructed table the size of a room and was magnificent! Christmas Day was a day for church and a family meal. Santa didn't have much significance back then - children looked forward to the evening of 5 January when there was street parades with decorated floats and bands with sweets being thrown at the children lining the street before they went home. 6 January was a holiday with presents being exchanged then. I feel quite selfish that I haven't passed our crib on to my DGS but did give him one for home and my Spanish one will be his one day - just not yet! Apologies for digressing from the original post but it has brought back so many memories.