This concluding year, 2010, wasn’t a great year for me from the point of view of belenismo. I was unable to devote much time to working on my own belén this year and was also unable to visit Spain at Christmas to see what Spanish belenistas were up to. I didn’t even do a very good job on keeping up with the activities of American Nativity scene builders.
But some good things did happen. On December 21, Cristóbal Jiménez celebrated the 100th program in his wonderful Camino de Belén. Here is a link to the program, which is worth listening to – like all of his programs! Click on this link and you can go to the sharing site and download the file. There is a free download; it’s slow, but it runs in the background and downloads the mp3 to your desktop.
Also celebrating an important anniversary is Iñigo Mena’s brilliant and useful Foro de Belenismo. The Foro has been a vitally important part of the world of belenismo for 10 years now! It is fascinating to browse through it and learn about people’s creations, their questions, their techniques. I don’t post often at all, but it lets me know what my friends in Spain and elsewhere are doing. Below is their commemorative poster. ¡Enhorabuena!
The Asociación Belenista de Madrid is also celebrating its many years of labor in the propagation and perfection of the belenista tradition, and this year has announced that its publication, the magazine Belén, is undergoing a makeover. The new editor is Manuel Sánchez-Molina Mampaso, known to many of us here for his fine technique. There will also be a second publication, a revista monografica, that is, a publication focused solely on one particular aspect. More information will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, I’m checking my mailbox daily for the new Belén!
There’s no cover photo on their website yet, alas, but as compensation, if you click here you can see belenes put up by Association members for the 2010 Christmas season. They also have a nice new logo, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to post it here.
I was also informed of a new Madrid-area association, the Asociación Belenista de la Comunidad de Madrid LA MILAGROSA. This association brings together groups from some of Madrid’s outer neighborhoods, such as Chamberí and Getafe. It’s always a good sign that new associations are still forming. Congratulations to them, too! Click on their name to go to their web page and learn more.
Finally, last but not least, it is always a delight to read Belenismo.net, a blog maintained by the tireless Iñigo Mena. For the Día de los Inocentes, the traditional Spanish day for practical jokes that is somewhat similar to the American “April Fool’s Day,” he published a joke “notice” that Google was buying the Foro de Belenismo! While that’s not true, it’s certainly wonderful to see all the activity and energy that is bubbling through the world of Spanish belenismo.
Happy New Year to all!
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