Constructing A Nativity Event

As I have indicated in my two previous posts I have been involved in helping create a Festival of the Nativities.   Our goal was to stick closely to the time period when Christ was born.  I thought I would share some photo comparisons of some of the construction.

 

Here is the beginning construction of the side walls of the gym where tables would be set up and some of the nativities would be displayed with the next photo being the finished project.

 

 

Next is the gate at the door of the gym where people enter to view the nativities.  The next photo is the finished gateway.

 

 

 

The pile of rocks you see are to the well that was constructed near the stage where the live nativity was displayed. 

 

 Below is the finished well looking at it from the other side.  Notice the rock wall behind the well?  Believe it or not that was made by forming newspaper into rock shapes, spray painting them and glueing them to cardboard.  We then tucked pieces of spanish moss here and there to fill in the gaps.

 

And lastly was the live nativity area.  This was the part of the project that was my assignment.

My son constructed the stable and a friend from church built the manger.  A mother and her son built the backdrops and painted them for us. 

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We used different shades of brown and beige fabric on the floor then spread raffia around to look like hay (we were not allowed to use hay or straw because of fire code so raffia was a good substitute.)  Adding lots of dried grasses, weeds, fig brances and bamboo helped to fill in areas and hopefully made it look authentic.

 

I will be posting one last time in the next few days with final photo's taken from my new camera that just came today.{Merry Christmas to me ;-)}  Hopefully I can figure out the basics of it and the pictures will turn out better than my little point and shoot camera.