This is part two of the “Twelve Posts of Christmas,” a series exploring twelve traditions of the Christmas season.
Growing up, my family always embarked on a “Christmas Lights” tour during the holidays. Cousins and all would pile into my petite mother’s massive SUV, and around the lake we’d go. Slowing past particularly gaudy or delightful displays, each of us became a judge on our own HGTV program. Prime time for the “Christmas Lights” tour was certainly the post-dinner digestion period — gentle movement and the better part of an hour were sure to make room for pie.
The tour also served as a friendly aide to family members exhausted from the day’s battle. Whether one was spent from matching the correct name and age of each child present, eking out a conversation with a distant relative, or stooping in front of a hot stove, the cool breeze of the “Christmas Lights” tour (windows down, of course) would surely offer reprieve and refreshment.
Dotted along the front lawns of many homes were my favorite finds: varying figurines collected into nativity scenes. Similar to the elation of encountering a home with king-size candy bars at Halloween, driving by a house with a comprehensive Christmas crèche was a real treat. As a child looking on, I assumed that nativity scenes had always been a core part of Christmas celebrations. I was content that they were there — I was less concerned with how and why they were. I surmised that the practice naturally sprung out of the description of Christ’s birth in the Bible.
Time and curiosity, however, prompted some digging. While the Gospel of Luke recalls the baby Jesus in a manger — wherein the evangelist records that Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (2:7) — the actual practice of crafting a nativity scene can be traced back to a particular medieval celebration, 800 years ago. (Dan McLaughlin faithfully noted this momentous anniversary in the annals of the Corner on Christmas Eve.)
In the little town of Greccio, Italy, on Christmas Day in the year 1223, the first nativity scene was created. St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order, was traveling back from Rome, where the pope had just approved the Rule of the Franciscan order. St. Francis had recently visited the Holy Land, where the actual sites of Christ’s life and ministry had moved him deeply. The small hill town of Greccio, dotted with caves and livestock, reminded him of the countryside of Bethlehem. And so, an idea was born: The saint decided to organize a live-action nativity scene for a Christmas Mass in a Greccio cave, the first of its kind.
In Admirable Signum, an apostolic letter from 2019, Pope Francis reflects on the history, meaning, and importance of the nativity scene. (A happy reminder for Catholics: Not everything the pope writes is controversial!) Pope Francis, the first Bishop of Rome to name himself after the animal-loving saint, describes the preparations for that first, reenacted Christmas crèche:
Fifteen days before Christmas, Francis asked a local man named John to help him realize his desire “to bring to life the memory of that babe born in Bethlehem, to see as much as possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he was laid upon a bed of hay.” On 25 December, friars came to Greccio from various parts, together with people from the farmsteads in the area, who brought flowers and torches to light up that holy night. When Francis arrived, he found a manger full of hay, an ox and a donkey. . . . At Greccio there were no statues; the nativity scene was enacted and experienced by all who were present.
The scene in the cave, with the warm light of torches flickering off the walls, was accompanied by a miraculous vision, according to the first historian of the event:
All those present experienced a new and indescribable joy in the presence of the Christmas scene. The priest then solemnly celebrated the Eucharist over the manger, showing the bond between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist. . . . Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of Saint Francis, notes that this simple and moving scene was accompanied by the gift of a marvellous [sic] vision: one of those present saw the Baby Jesus himself lying in the manger. From the nativity scene of that Christmas in 1223, “everyone went home with joy.”
In the little town of Greccio, that first manger scene left a resounding impact — the people told of other miracles, brought about by touching the straw of the manger where the baby Jesus had appeared. Miraculous healings were recorded after pieces of hay were placed on sick animals or laboring women in difficulty. The rocky chapel where the first Nativity was staged can still be visited today in the Franciscan hermitage outside the center of Greccio.
While that first recreation of Christ’s birth enlisted live actors and animals, nativity scenes have taken on many forms over the last eight centuries. From empty coke bottles to astronaut shepherds at the Vatican, contemporary renditions of the birth of Jesus have taken generous helpings of creative license. Even so, the nativity scene is so familiar to us that our imaginations are able to observe such installations and, uh, fill in the rest. Regardless of the kitsch or the cringe, nativity scenes everywhere share in the story of that holy night in a small Italian hill town.