As part of the celebrations of Christmas and holiday season, Daniel Mansanti, Mayor of Theoule-sur-Mer, inaugurated on November 29 Nativity Scenes “The Cribs Path”.
For over 12 years the city of Theoule-sur-Mer, at Christmas time, reminds us that we all were children amazed by the magic of Christmas.
This feast brings us back each year in the wonderful world of childhood, populated by fantastic tales, magic, Christmas trees adorned with garlands and multicolored balls and cribs inhabited by cute little characters.
The scenes represented in cribs remind us of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in a trough barn surrounded by shepherds and animals.
His birth was greeted by the Three Kings, who guided the Etoile du Berger, came to honor him by offering him the first Christmas presents. All these characters continue to populate cribs from many countries around the world.
Under the form of naive representations or genuine masterpieces of art, cribs allow us to know other cultures, other traditions, other beauties.
This year’s Cribs Path nativity scenes takes us in the Czech Republic, with the exhibition of nativity scenes from the Jindrichuv Hradec museum in South Bohemia.
At the Cultural Center, Mayor Daniel Mansanti accompanied by Mrs. Sacha Dzvonarova, Curator of the Jindrichuv Hradec museum and surrounded by the head of the Office of Tourism and local elected officials, presented the features of the Cribs Path 2013.
Czechs cribs distinguished themselves by the fact that apart from the scene depicting the birth of Christ with the Holy Family and angels, they contain scenes of everyday life, musicians, shepherds with their sheep. They are usually constructed of wood, paper, glass, or gingerbread dough.
Visitors can see one large animated extract of the largest mechanical nativity scene in the world. It is listed since 1998 in the Guinness Book of Records. It took his creator, Tomas Krysa, more than 60 years to make this work. The second Czech crib, that of a small town in East Bohemia, Trebechovice, was built in the late 19th century. Its first owner, Josef Probost, wanted to make an example of maturity of the Czech people.
Populated with of about 400 figures carved in wood, it has an ingenious mechanism allowing to move 150 of them. In 1967, she was exposed to the Montreal Expo.
During the inauguration, Mr. Mansanti thanked Ms. Sacha Dzvonarova, Curator of the Jindrichuv Hradec museum and her team for organizing the installation of these cribs and for the preparation of Czech specialties vanotchni tsoukrovi (sweet cakes) served to guests during the inaugural evening cocktail.
Nativity scenes and expo – sales of figurines – Cultural Center:
November 30 to January 5, 10 am to 12 pm and 14 pm to 6 pm
Click on pictures to enlarge
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- Sacha Dzvonarova and Daniel Mansanti
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- Sacha Dzvonarova & Daniel Mansanti in front of large crib
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- Extract of the animated Krysa crib
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- Crib in a nutshell!
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- Crèche provençale fleurant bon le thym.
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