19 December 2025

On Wednesday night, the kirk at Pittenweem was invited to worship with the local Episcopal Church. They had organised an evening service of lessons and carols based on the famous Kings College,  Cambridge nine lessons but with a welcome reduction to six.

The service was well-attended with some young people in scout uniform in attendance too and everyone carrying candles. We were sitting near the front and noticed the nativity neatly located at the foot of the Communion Table. There was something odd about it.

The figure of Mary was quite different. She looked as if she had wandered off from an olive wood nativity for the other characters were colourfully ceramic. The priest revealed the secret. Last year, the congregation lost its Mary and had borrowed the kirk’s Mary for the night! A fitting ecumenical initiative.

I remember the beautiful olive wood nativity which I found in a cupboard in Stenton Church. The figures were all wrapt up in newspaper and hadn’t been out of their cardboard box for several years. The set was given by a Mrs. MacKenzie, famous for her colourful hats. Mary-Catherine replaced the newspaper with padded gloves.

Thereafter, the  set had many adventures! It travelled round the parish during advent spending a night in one house before being passed on to another. It was accompanied by a book. People were encouraged to write about their experience or even draw them.

One year, the individual figures appeared in shop windows in East Linton and the children were charged to find them.   Often it was unwrapped ceremoniously in the kirk. Because they were wooden, the children would play with them before, after and sometimes during the services.

On one occasion, the figures were lined up in two parallel lines with kings and shepherds facing off each other as if on the battlefield. There’s no end to the way the nativity set may be reconfigured and the story retold for it has all to do with endowing our lives with the quality of eternity.