Creche greccio giotto biography

Christmas is my favorite time of year. It’s cozy; people from around the world gather around the proverbial fire to celebrate with family and friends; it’s peaceful (at least in theory); disparate parties put aside political and cultural differences to recall the goodness in each other; it’s dramatic; it presents a paradox in which humanity and divinity, infancy and omnipotence, potency and actuality in a brief moment meet.

All that said, it is rare that I can escape this merriest of seasons without a forceful re-encounter with a vivid childhood memory: the opening Christmas pageant scene from the 1989 fantasy drama film Prancer.

I don’t remember when I first watched the movie, but over the years that murky stage, backlit with stark blue (were they blue?) bulbs and pinprick candles, has loomed ever more eerily in my mind.

Perhaps I am alone in this memory – the film certainly seems to have had other qual