HAPPY CHRISTMAS!  (THIS ONE IS AUSTRIAN, PAINTED BEHIND GLASS). we hope you have enjoyed the Faith Central Advent Calendar. Next year the exhibition will move on to another venue, watch this space
 The Provencal 'santons' or "Little saints" are one of the most beloved and followed schools of Nativity-making. These were made by Michelle Andree, the noted santonniere who lived in Britain but learned the craft 90 years ago at her grandfather's knee. The point of santons is that every trade and way of life in the 19c village comes to the crib - the baker brings bread, the Mayor brings a speech, the poulterer brings chickens...and there is always this little character,  Le Ravi - the village simpleton. He brings nothing, but throws up his hands in wonder and is placed close to the manger. Madame Andree used to insist that they should never be fired, but left 'fragile comme la chair humaine" - as fragile as human flesh -and re-painted and mended each year, with love.
 Why both together? Because - as visitors to the exhibition in Newcastle (final day today) will notice, the Suffolk Crib (shown in a barn of its own) has figures made in precisely the same way as the traditional Slovakian figures below. The dolls are classic corn-husk dolls, made from the outer husk of a corncob which is cut green, dried in the sun slowly, and modelled with thread and string and scissors and ingenuity. 
The craft actually springs up all over the world, apparently quite independently: for wherever maize grows, there are children who get bored during the harvest and take over the husks (and the ‘silk’, for hair) to make figures with more or less skill. American folk-memory has it that the Native Americans taught the children to make such maize dolls at the first Thanksgiving supper. Similar dolls appear as far apart as Mexico and Russia.
 When my globetrotting brother first brought me this crib from Chile, made by Temuco Mapuche Indians, I was a bit sniffy at first glance - it is very sentimental and Mabel Lucie Atwell...but then I looked closer and saw that the child has been swaddled in Mapuche style (it's cold on those highlands), and they have lit a fire to keep him warm. It is thus a genuine culturally-coloured Nativity, and well worth its place in the exhibition. It is a poor region; here are some real Mapuche babies swaddled up similarly..
 There are two Bangladeshi cribs in the exhibition now running in Newcastle - one is a dignified clay one with a fine water-buffalo, the other is this one made of sisal. I am particularly fond of the sheep. And of the fact that everyone is fixed to the base, so it takes less time to set up than the other 150-odd cribs in the collection...
 Every culture which attempts a Nativity sets its own stamp on it: here, in a gipsy camp built by the Romany-born Vernon Rose, the mother and her attendants obey Romany purity laws by having the baby in a “bender”, a temporary tent which can be burnt afterwards.
The welcome to a Romany child is intense; in some tribes it is wrapped in swaddling, on which a few drops of the father’s blood are let to fall, in earnest of its paternity; sometimes a piece of his clothing is placed on the baby. He is often prohibited from leaving the camp between sunset and sunrise, so that he is a protector from diabolical spirits; no other man may protect his wife. The child has three names: the first one a secret, whispered by the mother at birth and told to nobody. The second is a Roma name, for use in the tribe. The last, baptismal name is according to the religion of the country where the child is living, and is the least important.
For this Nativity, now on view in the Newcastle Exhibition, the artist wrote a poem beginning:
Romani Jesu, born on the straw,
Following only his Father’s law...
 This second African crib (on show in the exhibiton now open in Newcastle) is from Rwanda; I found it on sale in France for a charity, in the year after the genocide. As in all the African cribs, the feeling that the artist has for the material - ivory, ebony, soapstone or wood - contributes to the power of the piece. This is jacaranda wood.
 African spirituality is strong and earthy: the spirit world is part of daily life. There is magic, there are miracles, there are holy places , people and things. When this feeling of African sacredness invests itself into a set of Christian statuary, it is extraordinarily powerful, all the more moving to Westerners for its differentness: such figures are a powerful tool for meditation. Nothing is more universal than the birth of a baby, the coming of a miraculous new life; and since in the African spiritual universe spirits are thought to reside in trees, water, animals and rocks, the very materials of the sculpture have a numinous quality. This - from the exhibition which opens today in Newcastle - is from Tanzania, made of ebony. Tomorrow, more African cribs.
 In Barcelona, the strong Catalan crib tradition always includes, in the corner of the family crib, a little man squatting down in the corner who is - face it - defecating. The "caganer" dates back to the 16th century, some sy, though the Catalan goverment has now banned him from official displays; he represents the earthier aspect of Incarnation, and perhaps also fertility. Tends to startle people, though. A small one may or may not be in the exhibition of cribs in Newcastle which opens tomorrow. .
Continue reading "Advent Calendar day 17 - shocking" »
 If you go down the Via S.Gregoria Armeno in Naples all year round you find more cribs - presepi - and figures than you could ever imagine; and moreover, you also notice that the visitors to the crib include such contemporary figures as Mother Teresa and Diana, George Bush and Elvis Presley. And, almost always, a Harlequin figure like the one in our Newcastle exhibition , with a custard pie ready to fling. It is, I suppose, his one talent. I like the way the Neapolitans find it natural to set the crib scene in a pub...
 This was made in the Romanian countryside around the time of the fall of Ceaucescu. It is a rough piece but interesting as it is the only crib I have which addresses the problem of what the cattle will eat out of while the baby is in the manger. Look closely, and you see that the manger is subdivided - child Jesus closest to you, hay beyond. On show in Newcastle with the other 150 as from the 18th Dec....
 The Peruvian “retablo” crib is based on portable “St Mark’s altars”, with doors that can be closed on the scene within. Sometimes, despite the bright colours, the layout is very formal and traditional. More often it is riotously Latino, with the Child held up like the World Cup at the heart of a drunken, joyful scrum and a lot of bottles and gourds being waved. The best ones have been made for nearly a century by the family of Joaquim Lopez (our big one is theirs). However, as you can see, there is hardly any object or plant that someone will not attempt to put a retablo nativity into - eggshell, seed -pod, you name it. Half a dozen are in the Newcastle exhibition.
 These moving, dignified figures were carved by an artist in Maine, out of driftwood; I found them in Bar Harbor. Their roughness makes them timeless , and they have drawn a lot of attention in the few years since they have joined the rest of the world's Nativity scenes in the crib exhibition. 
 Today the Faith Central Advent calendar, courtesy of the crib exhibition (Newcastle this year) travels to Chile. Where, please note, this carver has decided that the baby Jesus is already weaned. He is standing up in his crib and Mary is feeding him from a big spoon while the villagers bring corn-on-the-cob. A welcome liberation from the missionary influence.
 Today's exhibit from the exhibition is from the Eastern Orthodox icon tradition, where the Nativity has particular interest. Note that for once, poor Mary gets to have a proper lie-down, instead of that kneeling position seen in most cribs.  Note also in the bottom right corner this detail - some will say it is a shepherd "bringing Joseph the good news", but it is more likely the temptation of St Joseph - i.e. the chap in the fur is a devil, telling him it's not his baby and he's been had. It is a very rich, mythic interpretation and one of my favourites.
 Another take on the crib: this is part of a triptych by the Romany artist Vernon Parker Rose. The shepherds visit the Baby; behind Mary and Joseph lies a busy townscape, and a distant island city which may be Heaven itself framed by an olive tree for peace. On the water lie the three ships from the carol: two anchored in the harbour, and the third unloading alongisde the quay. A dove of peace flutters overhead.
Gypsies have come to see the Baby, too; a musician sits on the steps of the inn and plays a portative organ, while at his feet lies his lurcher (the essential Gipsy dog) and a rebec. A dancing bear dances in the street below, to the music of a fiddler. 
The legend of the fifth nail is hidden in the picture: the legend is that Gypsy metalworkers were ordered to forge five nails for a crucifixion, one for each wrist and ankle and the fifth for the heart. But hearing of the victim, a gypsy swallowed (or stole) the last nail so that Christ would not die on the cross but would need the spear to pierce him. Some say that as a punishment for this, the tribes of Roma must travel the world, homeless for ever. (contd)
Continue reading "Advent Calendar day 10 - Romany" »
 Since it's Sunday, here is a special one from the exhibition (which has several in different sizes). The tradition of the Szopka is peculiar to Poland, and Krakow; the cathedral there provides the model for these magnificent creations of cardboard and foil, with the Holy Family almost an after thought, in the main door. There is an annual competition, held since 1937 which is spectacular; but during the hard years of repression, some families (I am told) used to pop a portrait of Lenin in front of the Nativity scene when their more Party-minded friends came round...
Some of the szopkas in Krakow have mechanisms, or lights, or even revolving turntables where the figures go in and out of the doors. And other themes than the Nativity get woven into the iconography of a really exuberant szopka: images of Cossacks, nobles or coal miners. The Poles, like many other nations, have thoroughly domesticated and appropriated the Nativity story until it gets a powerful national meaning.
 The latest from the exhibition is from Bolivia, where Christmas is very much a harvest festival. They look ordinary enough roughish clay figures, but many years ago my small son looked very closely at Mary's robe, interpreted the meaning of two random holes, and carefully raised it to his lips and blew. 
Look...Yes indeed - Mary is a whistle. So is Joseph. But not the Christ-child, that would be taking it too far...
 This is a matchstick. The head of the matchstick is carved into a Nativity scene , with Mary, Joseph, pinhead cradle and star. It is done by a chap in Santiago, Chile who - according to my brother who found it - sits amid the detritus of failed matchsticks, looking quietly resigned. He also does violinists. It is the smallest crib in the exhibition (18-23 Dec, Newcastle). Obviously....
 There is a lot of harrumphing going on about the BBC's Nativity play involving "a glamour model in a silver catsuit, a bus shelter , a pregnant teenager" etc but this blog wishes you to know that at the crib exhibition ( Newcastle from 18th) will be a 20-year-old precursor of all this. The Cardboard City Crib represents a railway arch with a teenage Mary and Rasta Joseph in among the homeless and the urban characters - one new character was added each year while Sue Dammann was still making them, so you will even find Denis and Margaret Thatcher among them...
 The box they are displayed in is collapsing, but the vow is that it will not be replaced until there are no rough sleepers on the city streets for want of hostel beds...
 In celebration of the happy outcome in Sudan, today's item offers the worst taste object in the crib exhibition. Most of the Nativities from around the world are respectful, many beautiful These are Chinese-made cutesy tat. When they were shown in Norwich Cathedral opinion divided over whether they were borderline blasphemous, or rather sweet. My view is that if they had been real teddies set up by real children after a Nativity play, they would be sweet. Being ceramic for soppy adults, they are less so...but no fatwas were issued, anyway. That's how relaxed the C of E is.
 Next from the exhibition: this stilt house (with animals beneath and baby in a swinging cradle) is made in Laos, which came out of colonialism into dogmatic Socialism and economic chaos and lost 10 per cent of its people to emigration in the 70s. It is now stabilizing and opening up cautiously to the West, though its human rights record remains poor The country is about 60 per cent Buddhist and not, therefore, an obvious place to go looking for Nativity scenes. However, this 14-inch high hardwood and bamboo house is a particularly winning one.
American Mennonite missions have set up enterprises for fair trade and this was made by a family in the village of Nakhoun Noy, not far from Vientiane. Mon Sipasert and two her her sons, Bounthanom and Som Nuk Sinnachack, in one year carved, thatched and wove a thousand of these...
They are Buddhists, but missionary reporters say that they responded keenly to the story of the saviour born in a stable; like many other families, they were driven off their land by poverty. The hope is to put the money these artefacts raised towards some chickens and a rice field.
 These sentimental, Renaissance-inspired figures made chiefly of stiffened cloth are produced in the Philippines and massively popular in Catholic shop-windows in Belgium, where I picked them up. With others (many far more curious) they go on their usual NCH charity exhibition 18-23 Dec, this time in Newcastle, details here.
 This one is Ethiopian, embroidered on rough cloth. Note the respectful way the three kings have taken their crowns off, highly unusual in European crib scenes. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Epiphany ("Timket"), the coming of the Kings and the baptism, is actually a more important feast than Christmas.
We thought we'd offer a Faith Central Advent calendar. By chance I have some 150 cribs from all over the world - they get exhibited for charity, and this year reach Newcastle (details here) from 18-23 December. The figures are from 40 nations, ranging from the head of a matchstick to a 4ft long village with a windmill . They are severally made of wood ,plaster, cloth, paper, maize, ceramic, glass, dough, tinfoil, clay, wax, ebony ,ivory and materials as yet unidentified. One of them doubles as a whistle. Many are very beautiful and moving , but one group, I am sorry to admit in the present inflammatory atmosphere, consists entirely of horrible ceramic teddybears dressed up for a Nativity Play. They reflect the way that different cultures assimilate the story of a hopeful birth and significant baby.
So just for fun, there will be a photo a day, posted at around 8 am. Here goes:
 
These shepherds are from Peru. I like their laid-back expressions and bonnets, also the way the chap in the hat seems to have lost interest in the stable in favour of a bit of drumming. For an article on cribs in Peru, click here.
 Years ago I swore a great oath that no child of mine would get an Advent calendar with chocolate behind the doors; not for any religious reason, nor because we were against chocolate. It was just the repulsive thought of a small child being so devoid of imagination that it couldn't enjoy merely opening a door on a dear little picture, and getting closer every day to Christmas. My lone campaign seems, like most of them, to have failed... Now the Archbishop of Wales sounds off against chocolate and other secular -themed calendars (Simpsons, Dr Who, and even the trollopy Bratz, for God's sake...). Lord Roberts, a Methodist minister, even drags in the obesity issue. Countless websites are flogging this year's crop of calendars, including one rather depressingly laced with cod liver oil (bleuch! - but hang on, its designed 'to reward your horse or pony'). Harrods is displaying a giant wooden calendar costing £ 30,000 and full of designer chocs (they piously offset the wood by planting ten saplings; such is modern religion).
For a soberer history of the Advent Calendar click here; it goes back to 1851. Or try a cheerful online one made by Woodlands School in Kent, with lots of international Christmas facts; if you want to sample the various rude men-only ones (which the Archbish would like even less), do your own searching, you dirty beast. Bah, humbug! 
Libby Purves is a Times columnist, novelist and Radio 4 broadcaster. Her interest in the glories, inspirations and eccentricities of world religions and cultural traditions was fuelled by an upbringing in Bangkok, Israel, Africa, France and a series of convent schools. Bess Twiston Davies works for the Times Register section and is a regular contributor to the Faith page and Times Online. She studied Hispanic studies and English at Sheffield University and has a journalism diploma from The Robert Schuman Institute, Angers, France. Contact Libby or Bess at: faithcentral@timesonline.co.ukYou might also enjoy Articles of Faith, Ruth Gledhill's wonderful blog about religious affairs.
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(THIS ONE IS AUSTRIAN, PAINTED BEHIND GLASS). we hope you have enjoyed the Faith Central Advent Calendar. Next year the exhibition will move on to another venue, watch this space 
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