Happy New Year! this time with Lego Creche

Happy New Year!

In my opinion, it’s still the Christmas/holiday season, not least because it’s still snowing on my blog. This should last at least through Monday when we all have to go back to school/work/normal life, and no I’m not looking forward to it at all. I really am feeling the need for another week off. I vote we all just take one. Right? This could work.

In honour of it still being basically Christmas, I think it’s time to unveil the 2013 Lego Creche. Long-term readers may remember that every year, Abel goes to his vast collection of legos and creates a nativity scene for me. I have recorded the results on my blog every year except last year. It all started our first year in Morocco, when he was 11 and most of his legos were in storage. The original Mary

may have messed with some people’s theology, although I have always felt that Mary was a woman just like us and that also possibly the line about “no crying he makes” might be a wee bit inaccurate. Although that year was somewhat barren, because of having relatively few legos, it still made a big impression. The following year included the wicked King Herod sending off his soldiers. And every year has a Roman patrol, which I feel should be included in traditional nativities because I’m sure there were lots of Roman soldiers patrolling the crowds. After all, a census was big business, and they wanted to get their hands on their share of the taxes. Here are years 2008, 2009, 2010. Although he made me creches in 2011 and 2012, apparently I didn’t blog about them. I photographed one year, but last year I didn’t even bother, because of how much I hated the phone-as-camera concept with all its limitations. No doubt you all thought, just because he’s all grown up now and the tallest in the family (which isn’t saying much. We tend to be a bit height-challenged), that he’d given up on legos. But no, he hasn’t, and I don’t think he ever will. He’s in drama at school, and it’s but a small step from designing lego creations to designing sets.

So, the 2013 version. (Aside: can you believe it’s 2014? remember when this date seemed comically distant?) This year might actually be my favorite in many ways. The attention to detail is terrific.

You can see the inn with the stable out back, set on a busy albeit narrow cobblestone street with the Roman patrol going by. (Why yes, I think he might have been influenced on this by growing up on Asterix and Obelix comics. I just thought of that) Note the detailing on the inn, the different coloured blocks, and the blocks of hay on the roof of the stable. Also the stable this year includes boxes for the horses and a couple of actual horses to boot.

I took the roof off the stable in order to get a good view inside. This year, Mary continues to be sleek and dressed all in black, with her hair in a becoming topknot. Joseph has been too busy to get to the salon, and he has also been spending more time in the sun which seems to have bleached his hair out.

Hey, can you tell I got a camera for Christmas? I did! It’s very cool, because I may have expressed my frustration with the camera phone once or a hundred times. It’s small and black and makes a very cool clicking noise and it does very cool close-ups of lego figurines.

Back to the creche. The inn is pretty full. There’s this guy round back…

and the place is full of people kicking back and relaxing on their way somewhere else…

and this guy…

As you go round the corner behind the inn heading to the stables, you will glimpse the 3 wise men presenting a treasure chest of, well, treasure. In this version, they all sort of went in together.

Why yes, Abel’s extensive lego collection does include a fair number of hobbits and lord of the rings.

We had planned a New Year’s Eve party, but then I came down with a fever and Ilsa was up all the night before with severe abdominal pain, which I googled sleepily on my phone at 5 a.m. before sending her back to bed to see if she got better in an hour or if I should make Donn get up and drive. She fell asleep and I succumbed again to the sweet siren spell of Nyquil and no one got up before 10. So it was pretty quiet round here. We did make it to midnight, and our annual playing of the U2 song.

Happy New Year! May 2014 bring you much joy.