LIVE NATIVITY SCENES: A TRIP BACK IN TIME

The magic of Christmas includes managing to spend days together with the family, finding time, that can never be found during the year, to visit the villages of Umbria decorated for the holidays and discovering the presepi or nativity scenes hidden in unexpected corners of the city.
Umbria is a region full of nativity scenes, likely because it was one of its illustrious citizens, Saint Francis of Assisi, who had the idea of representing the nativity of Jesus in a grotto that he saw in 1223.
Every little village has its own presepe, some made with little ceramic statues; others, in wood; some utterly simple; others of detailed refinement; and yet others of flesh and blood. Every year the live nativity scenes in which people re-enact the life and times of Jesus along the streets of the town are very popular.
There are many live presepi throughout Umbria: at san Petrignano di Assisi, at Bettona, and at Massa Martana, but let us tell you about the magic of the one produced at Marcellano, a village in the district of Gualdo Cattaneo, that has been transformed into the town of Bethlehem during the Christmas period for the last 30 years. About 100 characters bring back places and crafts of that period so that, along the way, you may run into the weaver working her loom, the knife grinder sharpening knives and blades, the chair weaver transforming a bare frame into a woven straw seat, the laundress soaping and rinsing large white sheets. You can go back 2000 years just walking through the streets of the village where on 25 and 26 December and 1 and 6 January beginning at 5:30 p.m., the story of the birth of Jesus will be re-enacted.
For more information: www.presepemarcellano.com