Felices Navidades, Bon Nadal, Merry Christmas!

This has been a long, difficult fall, and my posts (or lack thereof) have reflected this.  But everything renews at Christmas, when we pass from the darkest evening of the year to a new beginning, and it is true of this long year as well.

This year I was not able to go to Spain for Christmas to see the belenes, the ferias de Navidad and even the shop windows that I love so much. But my dear friend Maria in Barcelona was wandering through her city and sent me these wonderful photographs that brought it all back to me and made me remember that no matter what, it’s still Christmas and all of this is still out there.

Here’s a brief overview, starting with the pessebre  in the Plaça de San Jaume.

 

Here are a few details.  First of all, the pastores or farmers:

 

Next, some ducks, making their way down a stream:

 

And here’s the Nativity itself:

 

 

Maria also did some window-shopping, and here we have a very well known shop, the Cereria Lluis Codina. A cereria  is a chandlery, a place where wax products were sold, although of course other supplies were sold there as well.  Many early Nativity figures and religious statues were made of bees wax, molded over an armature and smoothed and painted.

 

 

In the close-up of the window, we see reyes and pastores and a larger Nativity scene with St Joseph and the Virgin, and the Niño in a straw-filled crib. 

 

Finally, Maria visited the Fira de Sta Lucia, that is, the Nativity figure market of Santa Lucia, in front of the Cathedral, and took this photo of some of the beautiful figures made by Montserrat Ribes, sold in this case by Deulofeu (which has a very interesting website with historic photos).

 

 

And to finish it all off, here’s a photo of Parada 24 (formerly 20), belonging to Maite, a very well-known seller of figures of virtually every variety, as you can see.

 

 

So for me, Christmas has come back again at the last moment!  With many, many thanks to my dear friend – and many wishes that you all will have a wonderful Christmas and we can resume our journey through the Spanish Nativity world in 2011.