Madeiran tradition has always had close connections with Christmas season, which many still call "A Festa", The Feast, and concerning Christmas symbols nativity is, beyond any doubt, the most represent-ative. Not only in churches, but also at home this is the most value component and the one who calls for most of the building task effort. The one which appeals more closely to creativeness and careful elaboration down to the smallest detail. This year there was an added attraction at home, which consisted of a nativity live interpretation by Carlota and Sofia...

Morphology of the Madeiran nativity also mirrors local life and uses such as, for example, the kind of building in terraces or "escadinha" (ladder) as it is often called, with rocks, caves, steep walkways, as a memory of how the season was celebrated on former times, when travelling around of those who feasted it meant a much stronger display of true commemoration related to climate hazards and difficulties of the terrain along which people walked from village to village towards the church where the faithful followers gathered for religious ceremonies in which they all actively participated. There are quite elucidative narrations telling us about them, such as, for example, one describing Christmas at Ponta Delgada, from Horácio Bento de Gouveia, which makes us travel back in time and face a magnificent image of that commemorative behavior.

Even nowadays there are activities that make us get back to the time of those century-old traditions, as it is the case of nativities by the roads. Result of a communitarian work in which all the population often cooperates, are small samples of the season enthusiasm marking a strong score even in our days. Some days ago, in more than one trip, we drove by, in practice the whole island, stopping here and there by those nativities and admiring the careful work put on many of them, which in some cases goes beyond the most fertile imaginations, while on the other hand the simplicity of others, often a synonym of beauty, makes us think of how sometimes the simplest displays carry with them a strong meaning.

At the photo gallery there is an album entirely dedicated to this subject which, to justify the old saying is worth more than many words we could dedicate it. It is also our simple but deeply felt contribution to the anonymous work of many hands that, coming Christmas, manage to transmit the passing by traveler a feeling of tenderness and enchantment very peculiar, difficult to define otherwise than the already mentioned assertion, that the Madeiran Christmas represents the core of the religious celebration.