1-8-23, Day 7 In PTL Perrin’s Life
Welcome to day seven of A Day In My Life! Happy Sunday! We had a blessed time in church this morning!
Christmas in Germany was filled with music, the scents of pine and gingerbread, and the voices of many visitors, often gathered for meals or parties. German carols still fill me with joyful nostalgia; children’s choirs with their sweet, high voices, church bells ringing with abandon, mom singing along with her beautiful voice, the tunes interspersed with stern warnings to “stop that, or else!” as we tumbled and shouted through her living room or kitchen. We stayed clear of her rolling pin when she baked cookies, and couldn’t wait to help ice them with sugar frosting.
Until we moved here last year, German Christmas music brought me back to those times. I have several cds I played over and over. The cd player breathed its last just before I packed it to come here, and then I forgot to get another one. So, what I want for Christmas this year is a good cd player.
I never intended to collect Nativity scenes. It started with one, a cheap plastic set of characters, camels, and a donkey in a stable that we picked up sometime after my ex and I moved to New Jersey from Germany back in 1974. When I became a Christian, I wanted our celebration to focus on baby Jesus rather than Santa Claus, so I found another one on sale and bought it. After Bill and I married in 1994, his mother gave us the beautiful set pictured above.
When my mom went into a nursing home, she gave me the Nativity pictured here. She’d brought it over from Spain, where she had lived for more than 30 years.
Every time I saw a Nativity at a thrift shop or garage sale, I bought it. Eventually, it dawned on me that I had a collection. I was a collector of manger scenes.
Our friends and family noticed, and before long, they were sending them as gifts.
One of our daughters gave us Alleluia blocks with the Nativity characters on top. My aunt gave us the figures of Mary, Joseph and the baby with carved candles behind them when she went to her nursing home. A friend in Israel sent us a small carved manger scene. We received a Thomas Kincaid tree complete with manger scene from Bill’s mom. A son and his wife sent one encircled by wood with a star on top. So many wonderful memories are associated with each one.
Even our tree holds many Nativity ornaments. This year, I received a lovely star with a manger scene from my Secret Santa, a member of the RRBC book club I belong to. What a joyful surprise that was! It felt right at home.
These Christmas decorations will soon be carefully packed away for next year.
Although the visible reminders of that long ago Christmas morning will be hiding, the reality of the gift we received that day can’t be packed away. The baby who came to live among us, who grew up as one of us, who gave his life for us, was both the gift and the giver that day. His love, his light, is forever.
Blessings!
Patty Perrin (writing as P.T.L. Perrin)
PTL Perrin Writes... 
Your nativity scenes are so pretty that it’s a shame they have to be packed away for a whole year. I would display them one at a time and alternate them.
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Thanks for the great suggestion, Susanne! I do keep a few small ones out all year, but I think unpacking them and setting them out once a year evokes the feeling of Christmas for me. It gives Bill and me something to look forward to. He enjoys the atmosphere as much as I do. Blessings!
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Patty, what a wonderful collection of nativity scenes you have. I love making a collection of things we love, especially if each carries a fond memory. You have certainly had an interesting life and have created rich traditions.
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Thanks, Maura Beth! I’m grateful for the life God has given me, with all its twists and turns and dips and steep climbs. The best collections are those that carry memories. When I’m missing the noise and activity of a full house, taking time to reminisce helps. Blessings!
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Hi Patty,
I am glad you enjoyed your stay in Germany, and may you continue to enjoy it for many years.
Shalom aleichem
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Hi, Pat. After I graduated high school in Italy, I went to the University of Maryland in Munich. After that, I studied at the Control Data Institute in Frankfurt, worked in a bank there, and met and married my first husband before returning to the USA. I did all my growing up in Germany and Italy, and I sorely miss it, especially around Christmas. I don’t miss the cold at all, and wouldn’t trade living in Florida for anything at this point. I’m happy for you, that you’re living in a place you love with such rich and beautiful traditions. Not to mention the bakeries and cheese shops and Yaeger Schnitzel and Apfel Strudel, and….. I know you know you’re blessed!
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Thank you, Patty, for sharing your memories and photographs of your collection of nativity scenes. I particularly like your ornament that displayed the nativity. Happy New Year!
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Patty, I just love all your nativity decorations/scenes! What a beautiful collection!
Best wishes,
Donna M Atwood
D M Atwood
https://www.dmatwood.com
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Thanks, Donna. When you’ve traveled around the sun as often as we have, you tend to pick up a few souvenirs (memories). We’re blessed in the people we care about who also care about us! Blessings!
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Your nativity sets are beautiful, Patty! I love that each of them hold a special memory for you. Thanks for sharing them with us today.
Yvette M Calleiro 🙂
http://yvettemcalleiro.blogspot.com
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Thanks for taking that little memory trip with me, Yvette! I love unpacking them for the season and thinking about our loved ones as they emerge from their bins. Not the loved ones, obviously. Hey, wait. Could that be a story germinating?
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I do believe so, especially if you throw a paranormal twist to it where you get visited. 😉
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Your pictures are lovely, Patty!
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Thanks, Karen! We have so many more Nativities, mostly smaller, and tucked into random niches and corners. Most were given to us, which makes for a lot of memories of the people who gifted them.
Blessings!
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