As long as you keep to the essentials, then the stable is nothing if not inclusive.

I love Christmas cribs. Not particularly the grand or spectacular ones, but the odd ones patched together with things old and new and sometimes surprising. As I write this, I am looking at a crib scene arranged on an ordinary side table, nothing special. It is set up, as cribs always are, with the Holy Family in the centre, bearded Joseph leaning on his staff, seated Mary in blue, arms outstretched and her eyes gazing at the empty manger in which the infant Christ will be positioned on Christmas Eve. Radiating outwards are the kneeling shepherds, one with a lamb on his shoulders, the Magi in tattered brocade a bit further out (they really should have waited until Epiphany) and the farmyard animals – a brown cow, a three-legged sheep and a plastic goose; there are also two donkeys, one bare tinsel tree. The crib’s shabbiness is its deep charm. These figures have been laid out in this way for generations of Advents.

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