One Last Nativity/Crèche Post

As we were putting all our Christmas decorations away today I remembered two things one was that I never posted the picture I took of the nativity that hung on this year’s advent calendar. So here it is. I bought it last year while Christmas shopping at the antique booth store in Andersonville.

The other thing I remembered was that I wanted to write a post about two disturbing newspaper articles about crèche figurines I read this season. The first was a New York Times article titled “Lamine Lamal has a statuette of himself doing a poo: Its Christmastime in Catalonia”. The article explained that the soccer player was proud of his “caganer” because he understood the tradition unlike other soccer players who had been disturbed when their figurines were created. And what is a caganer? According to Wikipedia:

A Caganer (Catalan pronunciation: [kəɣəˈne]) is a figurine depicted in the act of defecation appearing in nativity scenes in Catalonia and neighbouring areas such as Andorra, Valencia, Balearic Islands, and Northern Catalonia (in southern France). It is most popular and widespread in these areas, but can also be found in other areas of Spain (Murcia) and Portugal.

The name “El Caganer” literally means “the pooper”. Traditionally, the figurine is depicted as a peasant, wearing the traditional Catalan red cap (the barretina) and with his trousers down, showing a bare backside, and defecating.

And if that wasn’t bad enough a few days later I read an article in the Tribune titled “Nativities casting Trump as wise man”. Apparently it is tradition in Naples, Italy to portray the wise men as contemporary celebrities. Soccer players have been popular in this role as well but this year Trump is the bestseller.

Words fail me!