{"id":12006,"date":"2016-12-24T07:25:29","date_gmt":"2016-12-24T06:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.richardlittledale.co.uk\/?p=12006"},"modified":"2016-12-24T07:25:29","modified_gmt":"2016-12-24T06:25:29","slug":"made-with-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/2016\/12\/24\/made-with-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Made with love"},"content":{"rendered":"

A corker of a nativity<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Three weeks ago, I sat on the steps at the front of Newbury Baptist Church<\/a> surrounded by children, telling them a traditional Christmas tale from Mexico. In it, a poor girl is wracked with anguish because she cannot afford a gift to take and lay at the manger in church on the night of Christmas Eve. A kindly Uncle reassures her that any gift, if given with love, will be made spectacular in the giving. In desperation, she stops on the way to church to pluck a posy of weeds growing at the kerb. As she hands them over at the manger, they turn into the glorious red and green of the poinsettia – transformed with love. I had no idea at the time that the tale would be re-enacted in my own experience.<\/p>\n

In the intervening three weeks, life has been very challenging<\/a>. Also, during those three weeks I have talked in church and elsewhere about my collection of nativity sets<\/a> from around the world. Yesterday, I acquired another one. It turns out that three of those children who had been sitting on the steps had spent all day on December 22nd making it for me.<\/p>\n

As you can see, the whole thing is constructed from discarded corks, even the star hanging overhead:<\/p>\n

\"CLICK<\/a>

CLICK for full size<\/p><\/div>\n

There are cork shepherds, cork sheep and a Fresian cow<\/p>\n

\"CLICK<\/a>

CLICK for full size<\/p><\/div>\n

A cork Mary and Joseph look proudly on:<\/p>\n

\"CLICK<\/a>

CLICK for full size<\/p><\/div>\n

A cork angel stands as sentinel:<\/p>\n

\"CLICK<\/a>

CLICK for full size<\/p><\/div>\n

And, of course there is a (half) cork baby Jesus:<\/p>\n

\"CLICK<\/a>

CLICK for full size<\/p><\/div>\n

This is, without a doubt, the most precious nativity set I own – made with love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A corker of a nativity Three weeks ago, I sat on the steps at the front of Newbury Baptist Church surrounded by children, telling them a traditional Christmas tale from Mexico. In it, a poor girl is wracked with anguish … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12006"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12012,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12006\/revisions\/12012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}