One story, told 460+ ways

Here's a familiar sight this time of year -- the Christ child lies in a manger, gazing up at Mary and Joseph. His loving parents bend over him as sheep and a donkey gather in the stable to worship.

But wait -- that's no donkey. It's a moose, with a bear and a husky beside it. Mary and Joseph are clad in fur-lined parkas and kneeling not by a stable, but by an igloo.

Welcome to "Faces of the Nativity," a three-day exhibit last week at the Crystal chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of more than 460 manger scenes. The sets represented six continents -- and countries ranging from Mongolia to Brazil, from India to Poland -- and were created from materials as diverse as clay, stone, beeswax and white chocolate.

For many of us, it's a challenge just to muster the energy to deck our own halls. After dragging in the Christmas tree, rummaging through the basement for the ornaments and stringing up the lights on the house, we sink back into a chair, exhausted.

Not so the volunteers in Crystal, who spent days artfully arranging the thousands of angels, wise men and shepherds in manger scenes lent by church members from around the metro area. The hand-bell choir of the Parkway United Church of Christ in Minneapolis and area school choruses, among others, provided music. An estimated 1,800 to 2,000 visitors stopped in to marvel at the display.

"Faces of the Nativity," first held in 2004, takes place every two years. Its current chair, Kathy Ostvig, is a longtime nativity aficionado. She owns almost 300 manger scenes, 10 of which appeared in this year's exhibit, and has haunted garage sales and thrift stores for decades to search out the broadest array.

"When I told the congregation we didn't have a nativity set from Antarctica, one man brought in a scene with penguins dressed up as wise men and shepherds," said Ostvig. "We displayed it on a mirror with glass ice cubes scattered around it to add a touch of whimsy."

There were also sets of nesting Russian eggs, olive wood sets from Israel, a simple wooden Amish scene, a Hmong story cloth and a Mongolian set complete with a fur camel.

Many of the manger scenes depicted Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the shepherds and the wise men in the clothing of the artisans' home lands. One exquisite hand-carved set from Korea, for example, featured Mary in traditional hanbok dress and the wise men in Korean noblemen's hats. The figures in a Japanese set wore kimonos. In a French crèche from Provence, traditionally costumed villagers representing various trades brought the Christ child gifts of a pumpkin, firewood and a homemade cradle.

Among all this diversity, visitors often found a scene that especially moved them, said Ostvig. "One woman who came had lost her job and is now homeless," she said. "A friend brought her. It was a way for her to feel Christmas at a time in her life when she has no Christmas."

The homeless woman, who said she was originally from Cuba, stared lovingly at the faces and costumes in one old-fashioned Latin American scene, recalled Ostvig. "She told me, 'We used to have these beautiful things in Cuba until Castro took them from us. You have given my childhood back to me.'"

For Christians, the power of the Christmas message is that God chose to come to Earth, not in a blaze of glory, but in the humblest and most familiar of surroundings. "Faces of the Nativity" was a reminder that Christians around the world continue to celebrate that in a dazzling variety of manger scenes.