Wednesday, December 28, 2005
FRIENDS OF THE CRECHE
An article about a creche collector in the Bay Area reported in the Oakland Tribune mentions a Pennsylvania organization called Friends of the Creche:
Although his[The California collector's] creches draw dozens of curious visitors through his front door each December, the collection doesn't compare in size and scope with those of the nation's top collectors. One woman from Denton, Texas, who calls herself the manger maid, is believed to own 2,100 nativity scenes.
But Rita Bocher, who founded Friends of the Creche in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1999 and edits and publishes Creche Herald, a quarterly newsletter, said a collection of 190 creches is "very respectable."
The society's 450 members are from various Christian denominations and often collect for a mixture of spiritual and secular reasons, Bocher said. Her newsletter subscribers live throughout the United States and in Hong Kong, Malta, Ethiopia, India, Israel, Australia, Canada and Mexico.
"Usually they are people who travel a bit and bring back a nativity set," she said. "Many (creches) are representative of the culture of where they've been."
In Bocher's nativity scene from Ethiopia, the figurines surrounding baby Jesus resemble peasants from the east African nation. She said it is the combination of folk art with spiritual significance that makes creches "so powerful."
Friends of the Creche have their own website on the University of Dayton domain where you can read a history of the creche.
