Just wondering, do Christians also display a nativity set at home for Christmas? I was wondering about this the other day. I have no idea, I'm Catholic although not practising. But since we do have Mary we also have a nativity set, although not everyone does this anymore.

But Christians reject Mary, so... what about the nativity set?
And with Christians I mean the non-Catholics, protestants, reformed, evangelists etc.
Oh, and Church of England? I suppose so as this is much like Catholicism I think?

Just curious, not after a religious debate.

Humm, I was raised Baptist and have never heard of them ever rejecting Mary....

As far as the Nativity set.. I set one up for Christmas actually I have had the same set for at least 35-40 years now...

Non-Catholic Christians reject Mary Magdalen in their Doctrine, but not Mary, mother of Christ. So, the Nativity is shared and celebrated by all Christians, or at least most.

Ah, okay, I didn't know!
I always understood the split in Christian church was partly or mostly because the Christians wanted to be rid of Mary and the Catholics didn't.

@KRISTI That sounds great, Kristi! I have a set but usually don't set it up. I have to admit this is because of my British ex who insisted on not having it. Somehow that still stuck.
And I don't like the figures I have all that much :/
I take it yours are nice if you've had it so long!! Likely porcelain then?

@MATURE FRIEND Mary Magdalene is not accepted by Catholics.

Not being a Catholic, I stand corrected.

I had a few years where I wanted to break from the Christmas Tree / Santa tradition.
We decorated with a modified yard display nativity set. (Plastic lit ones) plus a large lit cross which hung on the wall.

We used tinsel and garland to dress it up. The baby Jesus was absent until the kids went to bed Christmas eve. When they woke in the morning, baby Jesus was in his cradle. We started Christmas morning singing happy birthday to baby Jesus. Then each kid read of his birth from the bible.

Instead of stockings, we made chests. Each of us decorated a chest with silver & gold with garland and tinsel. Then, after the kids went to bed we filled each chest with stocking stuffers.

On the first year, just after Thanksgiving and right after the kids went to bed, I shook some sleigh bells and did a deep ho ho ho. Then I commenced to kick Santa out of my house and told him never to return.
No Santa decorations, No Santa wrapping paper, No X-Mas at all.

I still have the home movies.
After the kids got older we went back to the tree and more traditional Christmases but we still sung happy birthday and read of His birth.
I still have family movies of that too.

It had nothing in particular to do with Mary or Joseph or Catholics. The focus was on celebrating the birth of Jesus. The Christ child...you know, the dude the holiday is named for...CHRISTmas.

Nice, Tom! Good memories :)

I'd like to set up my set this year, but then I'd prefer to have new figurines. And weird enough this turns out to not be easy.
Reasonably affordable sets that I don't like and then it jumps to E200+ which is too expensive. Nothing much in between.

Anywho, nice to hear it's not necessarily a Catholic thing :)

When I bought mine I bought them a piece or two at a time from local stores.
I started with a 3 piece blow molded plastic set with lights inside.
We painted and decorated to give them our own 'indoor' look.
We used real straw mixed with silver and gold 'icicles' laid out on brown sheet linens.
Used balsa wood and faux beams to make a manger.

The gift boxes were old crates, sanded and painted then decorated by us with glitter and gold.
We used silver tinsel garland to represent the rays. We used white, yellow and blue bulbs in the light strings.
We added other lit figures like sheep, a camel, 3 wise men, a cross and an angel each year till we had a full set.

Actually the set I have the figurines are porcelain and the stable is made out of wood... Nothing all that big for the stable is only like 10" -12" tall just the right size to set on an end table... So it is pretty easy to wrap up and store each year...

Sounds good. I wouldn't one that is huge myself. Might be nice but it doesn't have to become an overwhelming item in a room, plus not eat up all that much space :)
I'm starting to look forward to setting mine up this year, haha.
I guess that Christmas spirit is beginning to creep in.

Christmas is not productive. It's just a commercial endeavor, and has nothing to do with the birth of Christ.

Just one of many evils here in the "most evil country in the world" as you refer to us!

indeed my man. Christmas is actually an old Babylonian festivity memorating Nimrod, who was an evil man, born on december 25. Those who didn't worship Nimrod, their heads were cut off and hanged on a tree. The Evergreen tree with the color balls
hanging on it, symbolize the heads of those who went against Nimrod.

The Holy Scriptures don't mention the birth date of christ but he was born during the passover, and therefore he was born in late March or the beginning of April. A perfect time for the sheeps to be in the fields.

I never heard of Christians rejecting Mary. Where did that come from?

I don't display a nativity set. My grandmother was catholic and had a little nativity set by her tree, but I don't think it was a catholic thing necessarily.

Just stuff you are told 'along the way'.
Could be that I misinterpreted it, don't know.

Well, my problem is sorted :) I was looking for a nice new set but decided to first check out what the group I have looks like.
I got it of the loft and dang, it's quite nice! It has two black wise men, how that happened I don't know. So I got 3 total, 1 white, 2 black. I'm not gonna be fussy about it.
The faces look nice, especially Mary's I love! That is because I love Mary and her energy :)
Yesterday when looking at some new sets I saw a Mary that looked as if she was about to puke, hihi. I don't want that!

In any case, for now it's sorted.

hmmm, interesting.
The reformed don't usually put up a Christmas tree as it's about Jesus' birth and a tree has nothing to do with that.
I suppose they're all about sober, -their Christmas celebration tend to be more sober-, and possible because historically the tree is a Pagan thing.

The Protestants -which to me are also reformed/Christians- do not put out a nativity set as they do not revere statues.
I think that's where my confusion with Mary came from because during a war between protestant and Catholics the protestants ruined our churches and even trashed statues of Mary. I remember being taught about this at school as a young child and being horrified that they could do that. It had great impact on me, I was actually scared of protestants which we fortunately for me didn't have many in our province. I think I was only around 6 at the time. Just goes to show what such stories do to a child...

This is from a recount by a quite strict (Dutch) Reformed woman:
"A female religious heroine or example is too much for many reformed people and the minimum of attention for Mary reveals a protestant sexism."

She says there is some mention in their bible of Mary but very limited, and mostly related to her being a mother/the mother of Christ. She thinks how the Catholics feel about Mary is exaggerated.

So... I think maybe there's a difference between the reformed -and branches of that- in the US and the ones over here.

I think I can kinda see where you'd get that idea, if you were more catholic influenced than Christian influenced, but Christians don't reject Mary. She was the mother of Jesus Christ, that's accepted, but she's not held above anyone else or anything like that.

Mother Mary is NOT an important figure in the bible. Her name is probably mentioned 12 times in the Holy Scriptures. The only important account we have of her, is the message which she received about the birth of Christ. The 2nd message, fleeing to Egypte, went to Joseph and he informed his wife.

Right, she gave birth to Jesus, but isn't really significant aside from that. Anyway, the nativity scene isn't really about "Christmas", as "Christmas" isn't a Christian holiday.