Nativity Tableau

Mary is cradling baby Jesus in her arms; the three wise men have arrived with their precious gifts - gold, frankincense (a perfume oil), and myrrh (a gum from a tree that was used in medicine in ancient times).

The Angel Gabriel is there, looking over the scene, and Mary’s partner Joseph is close, carrying a lantern.

Where are the shepherds?  The story of Jesus’s birth mentions shepherds.  Mary and Joseph were on their way back to their home town, but when the baby was about to be born, they had to stay in a shed on a farm.  In this Kirk’s scene, the shepherds must have been out in the fields tending their sheep!

In 2015 the famous department store Kirkcaldie&Stains closed down.  They had a wonderful large scene of the Birth of Jesus made of Italian plaster that they always displayed in the shop window in Lambton Quay each year.  Looking at the Kirk’s Christmas window displays was a famous thing to do in the week before Christmas.

When the shop closed, the figures were donated to the Cathedral, and the scene has been set up every year since 2016 at the beginning of Advent until Epiphany (January 6th, the twelfth day of Christmas).