Abby Schill
Dartmouth College
May 16th, 2019
Material Lore
Nativity Scenes
Informant Data: The informant’s name is Abby Schill who is an 18-year-old from Wisconsin and is a Dartmouth College ‘22. Her family celebrates Christmas together each year with her grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Abby described Christmas as “the most important holiday of the year” for her family.
Contextual Data: I interviewed Abby after rugby practice at Dartmouth College as we ate dinner together. This form of folklore has been part of Abby’s life since she was a baby because her mother has collected these scenes since she herself was a young girl so Abby used to play with them as a baby. Abby’s family celebrates Christmas each year and it is an important holiday to them. They have several traditions they follow each year which includes the objects they put around the house, especially nativity scenes. A nativity scene is a special exhibition of art objects usually displayed during the Christmas holiday that represent the birth of Jesus. Abby’s mother sets them up on December First every year to kick start the start of the month of Christmas. These scenes impact Abby’s life as she described, “They make me feel at home and like I belong to something important because they are so important to my mom and they make her happy, so that makes me happy.”
Item: This folklore was voice recorded while Abby and I ate dinner together. Abby’s mother puts up eight nativity scenes around the house because she enjoys collecting them as she has travelled around the world to buy them and received some of them as gifts. They have one from Germany, one from Israel, some are children’s toys that she played with as a child (and her mom still puts them up to this day), and some of them were her mom’s grandmothers who passed them down to her. Her mom puts them above the mantel, one on the piano, one in the dining room, and then the rest are randomly placed on tables throughout the house. Many of them were gifts to her mother so she likes to show them to family when they come for Christmas. Each scene is unique and are made out of cool materials. For example, one was made of bread dough and then hardened and painted.
Lilly Durbin
20-years-old
27189 Pumpkin Street
Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Spring Term 2019