A knitted display, a hand-made advent calendar and a three-dimensional lithograph were all part of St Luke’s Christmas nativity display last week.
The first living nativity scene, attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, occurred in 1223 in the Italian town of Greccio.
St Luke’s Anglican Church vicar Rev Andrea McDougall said people’s warden and church committee member Gillian Lynch initiated the annual project that exhibits nativity displays from many countries around the world.
"She just wanted to invite people to explore something of the Christmas story," she said.
The oldest pop-up nativity scene was a vintage concordia Christmas manger set from the 1950s, depicting the Christmas story in three-dimensional lithograph in the St Luke’s Church nativity display.
Ms McDougall said Joan Woodgate, who donated this to the church, used to babysit former St Luke’s vicar Archdeacon The Ven Bernard Wilkinson.
"So that obviously dates it a little," she said.
Archdeacon Wilkinson said if Joan were alive today she would have been 115.
Nativity display assistant Rita Kerk said the display had visitors from all around the world.
"We had a lot of people coming through from Switzerland, China, Australia and all over the world."
Ms Lynch also made a handmade advent calendar that was part of the cultural nativity displays.
Ms Kerk said she happily won the calendar in a church fundraiser raffle.
