Some of my favorite nativity sets:

Nativity Snowglobes:

Nativity Music boxes:

Wonderful collection! My tree is all music ornaments!

I have four nativity sets in the house. My favorite is a pewter set in four pieces. The holy family and stable, the shepherds, the kings and an angle. I’ll see if I can get a picture for you.

Auntthelma, love the way you display them on the shelves. Very Pretty!

I still have my Mom's. Love the nativity decorations!

Janecalle: they are all the more special when they have been passed down and loved by a family. Love the way you light it with the little lights.

This set was my husbands mothers, she got it in Mexico sometime in the 1960's. We keep it in the same cardboard box with the same old news paper wrapping when we put it away each year. The box is marked in his mothers handwriting. My husband usually leaves most of the Christmas decorating to me but we always put this nativity out together. I know it brings back fond memories of his childhood and his mother.

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Wow, that is so special Jamie! I know what you mean about keeping the packaging. I have a few of my mothers decorations, including her Mr and Mrs Santa salt and pepper shakers still in the original box! Just seeing the box makes me smile!

Jamie I was going to post our Nativity sets over on the Christmas Tree thread! I'm happy you started this one :-)

Right now we are very kid-centric. But I'm on the lookout for just the right grown up one for on top of our recently acquired piano!

Fisher Price Little People, with a shepherd standing in for Joseph who went MIA in year one, and Noah joined the group because he just looks like he belongs:

And the Avon set the my daughter got for her first Christmas; this is her 16th! In this one, Joe always had a staff like a shepherd, inexplicably. And I've always referred to him as Joe, but the other one is Joseph to me. Funny. It didn't come with a stable so it's Fisher Price to the rescue again :)

We set them up on the top of the kids' toy shelf in our family room, and we call them collectively "the Jesus people."

Sorry for the poor photo quality, on my phone they look crystal clear. ??

Well, I have 50+ Nativity representations in my home this year. I posted a few on the Christmas tree/decor thread. Here are a few others. Our rubber set sits
in the bathroom, my children used to play with it in the bathtub!!

lindsey: I had that same AVON one for my daughter when she was little (she is 28 now!) and I would let her keep it on a table in her room each year. She loved it and would play with it for hours. Every time I went in her room she would have them arranged differently. I am not sure here that one went the last time we moved. I will have to look for it!

Arcy_gw: love the nativity cookies and the nativity advent calendar. Nice to know there are other crazy collectors out there like me. I really want that Charlie Brown one now! I know I counted 60+ displayed this year not counting the ornaments on my Nativity tree. I am going to try to count when I take the tree down this year.

Nativity QUESTION: I just realized that I always set up my Nativity displays with the WISE MEN on the LEFT and the SHEPARDS on the RIGHT of the Holy Family. Jesus in the middle with Mary to his left and Joseph to the right. How do you do yours?

I'm not displaying my nativity this year because we will have a tiny, curious person in the house. But here's mine from last year.

Well darn. My picture won't post.

Why won't the picture post? Hmmm.

Gigirabmles, I think your nativity is shy! Try checking the format of your photo, there are some formats that do not work here, I stick with .jpg and .bmp and they seem to work well. IF the photo is another format try re-saving it with one of the formats I just listed and then try posting it again.

I want some Nativity cookie cutters.

Jamie, I think my wise men and shepherds are different depending on the Nativity. The one in my bedroom, the wise men sit behind but there are no shepherds.

They are the only cut out cookies we do. We do sugar/decorated at Halloween and Thanksgiving when there is more time. We make these with gingerbread..so no decorating outside of white edging on some. Our biggest gingerbread fan prefers hers with nothing. I found the set at a garage sale two years ago and FREAKED!

That is so cool!

This was my parents bought in the early 50s. We use to put it under the tree, but now put it on the high on the book shelf due to little grandchildren fingers.

Mine was carved in the Philippines by people with visual impairments. Purchased through the Christian Blind Mission.

Thanks. Oooo, I see a bunch on Etsy!

Sheeisback: LOVE the way you put the music sheet behind the nativity. I am going to steal that idea! I got the download for a music sheet like that last year and made Ornaments with my cricut cutter.

stoufmason: Love the story behind your nativity. Makes it much more meaningful.

functionthenlook: Love those family nativities. The one my mom had when I was little in the 60's looked very simular. I remember the angel hanging up like that. I think my mom had to glue her wing back on a few times when us kids would accidently knock her off her little nail. You don't see very many Nativities that have three camels (one for each wiseman) that is rare. I guess the rest of the wise men are all ride shairing on one camel. lol

For everyone that loved the Nativity Cookie cutters in arcy_gw's post, you can get at least four different sets through Amazon. The sets range in price from $12 to $22. Just search "Nativity Cookie Cutter".

On our honeymoon we purchased a nativity set, at a craft fair. A few years ago I came across the same set painted almost as well, at a garage sale and bought it because I love a nativity with a lot of characters! The kings for it usually sit on my mantle, looking across the room to the star and the stable.

Acry-gw: what a special way to share the nativity with children! Love it.

Here's my nativity set

I have it on a table along with family Christmas photos from the past 5 years

This is how my Nativity set looked today after my 3 year old granddaughter was here.

Thanks Jamie! I really like my all white nativity set but wish it were larger. It always seemed to get lost in decorating even if I sat them on a tray or something similar. The manger goes with another set I had in the attic and I don't care for the colors/glitter of the figurines in that set. I liked the idea of using the white set with the manger but then there was too much space above them. The sheet music I printed out about eight years ago and never got around to using it for decorating. While pondering if there was anything I could use to fill the gap that sheet music came to mind. I thought it worked out pretty well.

ETA - Almost forgot this.

This is my inheritance. My dad made the scape. The figures were gifts over the years. When they down sized they knew who would give it a good home!!

Then:

Your nativity sets are so pretty - all of you:

Here are some of mine:

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My dad made my crèch. He used small branches fron the yard, and salt marsh hay to thatch the roof.

Bought this at a Velvet Cave tour in Valkenburg, The Netherlands by a Polish woodworker; we lived across the border in Germany. Kasteelruine Fluweelengrot: Castle Ruins and the Velvet Cave. "Serving as both hiding places and escape routes during various attacks and occupations, many of the tunnels weren’t discovered until 1937. In 1944 the Velvet Cave served as a refuge to hundreds of citizens of Valkenburg during World War II, as American troops dislodged German occupiers from the region. These American soldiers etched their names, hometowns and doodles on the soft walls of the cave, still visible today."

Beautiful! All of them are so special. Love seeing these collections.

All of these are wonderful! What a great way to emphasize the reason for the season!

These three Wisemen Nutcrackers always greet my guests on my entry hall console:

This framed back-painted glass Nativity I found at a local antique shop:

This is my newest Nativity:

My orange tabby loves checking out the Christ Child!

Oh, with regards to the placement of the Wisemen, since they were following the star which they had seen in the east, I always have them on the west side of the Nativity facing the east.

So many beautiful Nativity scenes! Here are two hand crafted ones from Quebec, and two globes. I love the faces in the second globe.

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@Jen K, and @ Nicole- my family went to Oberammergau for the Passion Play in 1980. I was just a kid, but it was an amazing experience with all the townspeople participating in the production. Those same folks would put tourists up in their homes for the event. Don't know if they still do this? We stayed in an upstairs bedroom of a lovely old woman who was sweet as pie and I remember lots of wood carvings in her home. (We ended up coming home with a couple beer steins and hummels instead of a nativity set, as my parents collected them.) The trip was always on their bucket list. My dad had been stationed in Germany years prior in the army and my mom had very German roots. Thank goodness she was able to communicate somewhat since her family spoke a low German dialect. I remember my mom saying they saved 10 years for that trip. Such a beautiful, storybook place!

Merry Christmas to all!!

I have two beautiful carved pieces my Mother-in-law brought back from Oberammergau. This is one of them. The other is more appropriate for Easter:

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Thank you everyone for sharing your lovely displays and stories. So many Nativity's here had wonderful stories of family, friends and travel. Keep posting as they get packed up for next year!