An evening of music and more.......

I had planned to attend the music and creche celebration that was being held this past evening at Centennial Lutheran Church here in Henderson. I could not know what a lovely evening it would be! I had not planned to share any of my creche scenes but when my friend Joanie called to ask if I had any I would share, I said sure, I have some. It was fun to get them out and a bonus was to write the significance of each and now I will keep it with them when I pack them away. Here's a little tour...........

While the set above is not in a manger, I loved the detail of the creche figures.

These two scenes are two that I shared. The one on the left is a set of ceramic figures that I painted in 1971 during the time we were stationed overseas in Japan. I made the manger from wood scraps and almost every year it sits under the Christmas tree with the star propped up by a tree branch. The little set of figures is one I bought at the Dollar Store and I like it because my grandson enjoyed playing with it when he was just a toddler. I bought a set for him that he could have to take home, too.

The lovely blue lights don't show up on the trees and when you looked at the scene in the dimmed lights of the display room, you didn't see the cords! This one looked lovely in person. My favorite thing is all those sheep. Aren't they just too sweet!!

I have several ornaments with manger scenes and that's what you see in this collection. The two blue and gold egg ornaments on the right are made from real eggs. I have a clever trick for doing these eggs and am going to do a tutorial sometime next year on how to make and decorate real egg ornaments.

The manger in this scene is really cool and would be simple to construct from wood scraps and twigs. The figures are incredibly detailed and the work is very fine.

My "awww" moment came when I saw this little scene..............the cradle was made by a 12 year old boy and belongs to my friend, Joanie, who was one of the ladies who coordinated this event.

There were many more creche scenes but I selected just these few. After viewing them, everyone was invited to the sanctuary for a carol sing that was presented by Dr. Jeffrey Burkart a professor and associate dean at Concordia University in St. Paul, MN. Also with him were a flutist and soloist. I will have to get their names. They were very talented and the music that they shared and that we also sang along to, was just beautiful. Sometimes they had just the men sing, and sometimes just the women, sometimes just the flutist played or the soloist sang. It was really, really lovely.

When the program was finished, there were goodies and coffee and cider for everyone and an opportunity to purchase CD's and a children's book by Dr. Burkart titled The Hidden Prince. I took the opportunity to purchase a few items for Christmas gifts as they were specially priced for the holidays. And the money goes toward scholarship funds at Concordia. Earlier in the evening an offering was collected that will go to the local food shelf. It was a lovely evening all around.

I promised I would share photos of one of my trees each day. I got side-tracked onto the creche exhibit and the tree I was going to share is still waiting to be finished. In it's place I share this picture of the tree in the sanctuary at Centennial. It was so much more lovely than what my camera captured. Tomorrow, I'll get back to my own tree decorating.

night all.

Sandi