I kind of mentioned what a big deal Nacimientos, or Nativity Scenes, are here in Cuzco – but I thought that it’d be fun for you to actually see.  About a week before Christmas sellers starting setting up camp in the plaza of Belen (Bethlehem) and stayed there until about New Years.  You can get baby Jesuses in all sizes and colors, along with all different kinds of people and animals who might want to go to his birth place.  Literally there were blocks and blocks of tents selling all different things that could go into a Nativity Scene, from moss and plants to the managers, to shoes for the baby.  You have to see it to believe it . . .

S0, we’ll start with the flooring of your Nativity Scene . . .

What kind of moss do you want?  There is a lot to choose from for about 20 cents a bundle.

Look kind of familiar?  I briefly posted about this in Foto Friday 21- “Selling”.

Walk up the hill a little bit and you’re into the nativity pieces . . .

Camels, naturally.

Sheep and cows…yeah, that makes sense.

Gators?  Owls?  Pandas?  Cats?

Ducks?  Llamas (maybe)?

Teddy bears?  Bunnies?  Turkeys?

Goliath…or is that the angel?

The thing that is cool is that they use it all…and while I never really thought of toucans and pandas being at Jesus’ birth, when I actually saw a nativity scene with all of the random animals, it made me smile at its beauty – the entire created world, stopping to praise the newborn King.

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Here are a couple Nativity Scenes I photographed throughout the season:

One that my coworkers set up in our office:

The one at the church where we attended Christmas Eve Mass:

The scene at our house: