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Nativity sets and crèches on display at the St. Bartholomew Church auditorium in San Mateo. (Photo by Nicholas Wolfram Smith/Catholic San Francisco)
December 13, 2018
Nicholas Wolfram Smith
Made from wood, cloth or recycled oil drums, Nativity sets and Christmas crèches give people an opportunity to reflect on the coming of Christ into the world. Two San Mateo County parishes, St. Bartholomew and Our Lady of Angels, each hosted an annual display of parishioners’ Nativity sets to highlight the meaning of the Incarnation.
At St. Bartholomew Parish in San Mateo Dec. 9, the “Follow the Star” display brought out more than 100 Nativity depictions of the Holy Family, bought in such faraway locales as the Philippines or Egypt, or in places closer to home like Half Moon Bay.
Lalaine Frankel, one of the women who helped found “Follow the Star” at St. Bartholomew, told Catholic San Francisco one of the original reasons was to get children focused on the Incarnation.
“We all had young children, and we were trying to figure out how to fight materialism and commercialism during the Christmas season.” For its first year, back in 2000, she borrowed nearly 20 different Nativity sets and crèches from family and friends to contribute to the display.
Frankel said Nativity sets show Christ within a family and can give children “an active role” in discovering the meaning of Christmas.
Father Michael Healy, pastor at St. Bartholomew, said the crèches help children understand the religious foundation of Christmas.
“The cultural focus is on gifts, but we don’t often see the reverse, which is that it is Christ who is giving us the gifts,” he said.
Sue Brenner, one of the volunteers with the crèche display at St. Bartholomew Parish, said the Christmas sets “can carry a lot of memory.” Many of the sets on display are family heirlooms, or reminders of time spent traveling in other countries. Some carry a note of sadness. A set at Our Lady of Angels noted that when the owner’s family immigrated to America, her Christmas crèche was destroyed during the trip. On display was its replacement.
Rina Cassanego looks at Christmas crèche displays at Our Lady of Angels Church, Burlingame, Dec. 9. St. Francis of Assisi is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the Nativity scene. (Photo by Nicholas Wolfram Smith/Catholic San Francisco)
Our Lady of Angels began doing a display of Christmas crèches four years ago. Kathy Holmes, a parishioner at Our Lady of the Angels, said St. Bartholomew’s event was an inspiration for her parish. The crèche display also honors their Franciscan heritage – Our Lady of Angels is staffed by the Capuchins, a branch of the Franciscan order – and was a way to evangelize “our parish and our children.”
“It’s something every parish can easily do,” she said. “All you need is a little room and a few tables.”
Families can also build their own traditions around their home Nativity set. Frankel said her children would get strands of straw for each good deed they did during Advent, and use the straw to line the manger Jesus would lie in on Christmas.
“You can always bring in ways to teach,” she said. “It shows to them that this is our faith, and there’s something greater to this season,” she said.