Spanish Nativity

Buen Año Nuevo, Belenistas

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!

Savannah Nativity 2010

Returning from a Christmas visit to Charleston, I stopped in Savannah to see the Nativity scene that Brother Robert and Orlando Cuadra put up every year in the Cathedral of St. John.  It’s not precisely a Spanish style scene, but is close enough and combines the Spanish/Italian style with the charming touches of its builders.

First, we see people coming to a sudden stop to take photos of the scene and the dramatic star behind it.  Getting a clear field to take photos is difficult, because people flock to see the scene. In this case, it was just before Mass, so there was an element of haste!

 

 

Next we see the right side of the scene, which shows the Kings and their camels on the way to Bethlehem.  Behind it is the Crucifix that is permanently mounted over a side altar in that part of the church.  (There is also another set of Kings, approaching from the other side of the main altar – they are moved closer every day until they arrive on Epiphany.)

 

 

Here is the portal or the stable. Notice all the little birds perched on the roof.

Finally, we have the beautiful Misterio, the scene inside the stable.  As usual, it is filled with a whimsical profusion of animals, which of course are greatly loved by the children who visit the scene. In fact, it was hard to get a clear shot of the scene because so many children were clustered in front of it, busy counting the animals, identifying them, looking for them, etc.

 

Once again, Brother Robert and Orlando have done a spectacular job!  Many thanks to them for their time and effort – and I’m sure I speak for the people of Savannah, too.

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.