Christmas Nostalgia -- Escalating Nativity Scenes

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Now that Christmas is almost upon us (and I have finished my shopping, wrapping, Christmas Card sending, and cookie baking), I have time to reflect on the long-ago Christmases of my parochial school youth.

One thing I recall, but no longer have any examples of, are the one-piece plastic nativity scenes that we used to get as giveaways, or as prizes for selling a certain number of boxes of Christmas cards or Christmas seals *.

What stood out to me was that these Nativity scenes came in a number of different sizes and complexity, all starting with the same basic elements, which were added to and expanded in larger sets. The larger sets were more expensive, and were, I think, compensation for selling more cards or seals.

Your basic set consisted of a stable with a tall pointed roof with a sharp angle, like a Swiss chalet designed to keep snow off the roof. There were three human figures inside – a Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus lying in the manger. All three of these figures were of plastic so thin that the figures were almost 2-dimensional, like the toy soldier “flats” they used to advertise in the backs of comic books (“Get 100 soldiers for $1.98! All packed in this footlocker”). Except, unlike the soldiers, they were painted. There were also a couple of sheep, also flat, to show that this was a stable. And a tree, to make it a bucolic scene. And, of course, a star glued to the roof, because there’s one the Wise Men followed, only it had a tail, so it looked more like a comet.

Here’s an image of one, although this one looks a little more impressive – the Jesus figure isn’t a flat, and neither are the sheep, but in my youth the cheapest Nativity scene of this sort couldn’t afford three-dimensional figures. It’s only from these internet pictures that I learn that the name of this series is “Shiny Brite”:

As price increased, so did complexity and size. A slightly more impressive set had a wider stable, with a less acute roof angle. And you got more animals. With increasing level, you got the Ox and the Ass in the stable, and then Shepherds for those sheep. Eventually the star was accompanied by or replaced by an Angel bearing a scroll with “Gloria!” on it. \And you got more trees. Then you got the three wise men. Eventually you got so big that the sheep and at last the baby Jesus in the Manger – but no one else – turned three dimensional.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1341464598/vintage-hong-kong-nativity-plastic?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=shiny+brite+nativity&ref=sr_gallery-1-8&sts=1&organic_search_click=1

  • Just as Girl Scouts sell cookies, we were expected to go door-to-door and sell boxes of Christmas cards or books of Catholic Christmas seals to raise money for – I can’t recall what. It was good early training in salesmanship.
2

Huh, I have no memory of these. Most of the Nativity scenes I’ve had experience with had individual figures, so your starter set would have just the Holy Family, and then you could pay more installments to get a shepherd, and then a couple of animals, and then the three magi (sold separately), and then an angel, and then a camel for the magi, and so on. There’d be a stable available, too, except that almost nobody ever actually bought the stable: That was always homemade from a cardboard box or some bits of scrap lumber.

The only all-in-one nativities were wood, and either consisted of a bas-relief of everything (very expensive, and usually carved from olive wood from the Holy Land), or simple line-art jigsaw cutouts.

3

I have, of course, seen many Nativity sets with large, individual figures. But these stand out in my mind as being almost unique, in being all fixed to the same base, and in coming in different “grades” with increasing complexity and number of figures.

A lot of “Pop” Catholic religious art that could be gotten cheap during those years were actually pretty neat – they tended to be creative and abstract and interesting. These pretty representational (although flat) nativity scenes were the exception.

4

I have one of the Nativity “sets” that consists of the pointed chalet style roof. It has Mary, Joseph and Jesus. It might have a lamb and a star too. I’m going to have to take a look at it. Mine also has a string on it so it can hang on the Christmas tree. Which is where I put it every year. I think I or one of my kids received it at Catechism class as a Christmas gift from the teacher.