Growing collection
Nativity scenes continue to expand at New Glasgow church
If Nativity scenes are your thing, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New Glasgow was the place for you.
The church invited the general public to tour the building, where more than 500 Nativity scenes were on display through Dec. 2.
“This is our seventh year and we’ve grown every year since the first. We started out with 194 Nativities and this year we have 512,” said Jane Anne MacKinnon, a congregation member who, along with Heather Spears, organizes the annual event.
“They all come from our congregation. They supply everything you see. They give us everything, and Heather and I put it all together.”
Since it started in 2012, congregation members have made a point of adding to the collection each year.
“Obviously, we’ve added quite a few over the years and I think now, a lot of the families collect them for us,” MacKinnon said.
“It seems like a lot but we spread it out – it goes through the whole building and we try to make it so that we can see each one.”
Usually they get somewhere between 225-250 visitors, but MacKinnon said the event appears far busier this year.
A table was set up in one of the church hallways, showing more than 20 Nativity scenes from countries around the world, from nations such as Korea, Peru, Holland, Germany, Russia, Haiti, Africa, Vietnam, Mexica and Japan. There is also a scene from Bethlehem, where Christ was born more than 2,000 years ago.
“This gets a lot of attention,” said MacKinnon of the international display.
“A lot of them were brought here, and lady who owns those,” MacKinnon adds, pointing to a couple of the scenes, “her brother travels and he sends her (Nativity scenes) from his trips.”