For Unto us a child is born

Story and Photos By Beth Donze
Kids’ Clarion

During the first week of Advent, Baby Jesus is deliberately placed in his manger a few weeks early when the Friends of St. Alphonsus present their annual “International Crèche Exhibit” at the St. Alphonsus Art and Cultural Center in New Orleans. This year’s exhibit, which ran from Dec. 1-8, boasted a record 168 Nativity scenes of all shapes, sizes and national origins. Fashioned out of media such as wood, glass, stained glass, metal, clay, ceramic and fabric, the depictions of the stable scene at Bethlehem lined window sills, occupied the nooks and crannies of column bases and sprawled across temporary wooden planks balanced atop pews inside the more than 160-year-old space.