When Heidi Bartlett and her brother Kim Simon were growing up in North Haven, folk art in the form of a Christmas-themed German Warmespeil was a part of their holiday celebration. Also known as a Christmas pyramid, it is sometimes considered a predecessor the Christmas tree itself, and it looks like a playful carousel of one or more levels that can be decorated with simple folk art or ornate carvings. Candles are sometimes used to generate heat that spins a propeller at the top.

Simon now lives in California and Bartlett now lives in New Hampshire, but they came back home to Connecticut recently to visit their mother, Alice Simon, who now lives in Hamden and recently celebrated her 96th birthday. During the visit the three of them visited the Knights of Columbus (KOC) Museum in New Haven for its 12th annual Christmas exhibit, this one called Crèches of Germany: Tradition & Faith, which runs through Sunday, Jan. 29 at the museum, located at One State Street in New Haven. Kim Simon was delighted to find a Warmespeil, here referred to as a Krippenpyramide (Nativity Pyramid), from Saxony, Germany, in the shape of a Christmas tree with four different levels, populated with tiny religious and folk figures.

“Some of the folk art mimics what we grew up with,” he says. “The tradition in our house was that the Christ child brought the gifts, not Santa. We appreciate the story of the Christ child, but we are particularly fascinated with this exhibit’s connection to Germany, with the folk art, and with the level of detail in all of the different scenes.”

Peter Sonski, education and outreach director at the Knights of Columbus Museum, says the exhibit is designed to appeal to visitors on many different levels. He says the exhibit includes outstanding examples of folk art, and more elaborate artwork, such as the museum’s 120 square-foot Baroque Neapolitan diorama crèche, an elaborate display that places the Holy Family in the center of 16th century Naples, Italy. Along with baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this particular nativity scene is also packed with cherubs and shepherds, lords and ladies, merchants and musicians, and even everyday ordinary commoners going about their daily lives. This is a modern Neapolitan version made in 2014 with the same types of materials and same techniques used to create those from the 17th and 18th centuries. The settings are made of cork and other wood pieces, the animals are terracotta, the produce is of wax, and the figures are made with terra cotta heads, hands, and feet; glass eyes; fabric clothing, metal and beads for jewelry; and hemp bodies, which allow them to be posed, says KOC Curator/Registrar Bethany J. Sheffer. There are approximately 144 figures, including people, angels, and animals.

Crèches and Christmas Trees

While some symbols of Christmas are cheerfully secular in both their origin and expression, traditional nativity scenes, whether live or expressed through art, are solidly Christian in origin and based on the birth narrative in the gospels of Luke (1:26-38 and 2:1-20) and Matthew (1:18-25 and 2:1-12). This year the crèches on display are primarily from Germany, but there are also examples from Italy, Mexico, and Africa. Also during this holiday season, the museum, a non-profit founded the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic-based fraternal and charitable organization, organized a Christmas tree festival. As part of the exhibition associated with the Christmas tree festival, there is a tree decorated by 4th graders at Saint Mary School in Branford. The students received second place in a contest, garnering the school a donation from the museum for educational supplies or equipment. The tree decorated by the students from Saint Mary includes several very clever interpretations of the traditional Krippenpyramide admired by the Simon family.

The decorated trees are also on display through Thursday, Jan. 29 and visitors can cast their vote for the People’s Choice award, with the winner to be announced at the close of the show. In addition, there is a Christmastime Family Day on Saturday, Dec. 31, from noon to 3 p.m. featuring children’s crafts and live music.

Sonski says there are strong historical and cultural threads running through this year’s German crèche exhibit, since the oldest recorded German crèche dates back to about 1252 in the Monastery of Füssen in Bavaria, perhaps introduced by followers of St. Francis of Assisi, who is credited with developing the custom of the live nativity scene about 30 years before that.

“St. Francis was, of course, Italian, and he had, as a method of catechesis, assembled the Christian faithful and had them partake in a live crèche scene,” he says. “They were actual people who portrayed Mary, and Joseph, and the Christ child. His reason for doing this was to help them better understand the circumstances of Jesus’s birth. And then it spread from Italy into surrounding lands, and it became not only a method of catechesis, but also an art form.”

Sonski says it’s been interesting to view the different crèche exhibits over the years at the museum.

“What I’ve come to appreciate is that there certainly are universal elements to the celebration,” he says. “As it’s portrayed in creche art, sometimes it is beautifully artistic, but sometimes also very simple, a folk expression that is equally profound, and equally devoted to the respect and love for the Christmas story.”

Sonski says the Jesuits are credited with spreading the tradition of the nativity scene and that over time, German monasteries, abbeys, and churches began making more elaborate crèches. Eventually, Christkindlesmärkte (Christ Child Markets) gained popularity in major cities that included Munich and Nuremberg.

“These still exist and they are places where the Germans can get certain ethic foods or gifts or Christmas favors,” he says, adding that some of these markets are active year-round.

‘Fabulous’

The Simons not only grew up with Warmespeils and nativity scenes and crèches, they also have visited the 18th-century Neapolitan crèche at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut; they have visited the Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque crèche exhibit at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum; and have enjoyed several other exhibits of the nativity scenes and crèches during past years at the KOC Museum. They say the KOC exhibit staged this year not only features beautiful and fascinating displays of nativity scenes, but that it is also skillfully curated, and that they learned much that was new to them while visiting the exhibit. Bartlett, who is crafty and likes to build things—she once built a tiny two-room house in a walnut shell—was particularly fascinated by and inspired by the miniature scale of some of the work on display.

As for their mother, Alice Simon? She was thrilled.

“This is fabulous,” she said.

While viewing the exhibit with her children, she sometimes lapsed into her native German while talking about what she was seeing. She said it reminded her of many places she had lived in and visited in Germany when she was younger. Included in the displays before her were scenes from Berlin, the Ore Mountains region, Bavaria, and examples of Brick Gothic architecture typical of cities including Lübeck, Rostock, Wismar, Schwerin, and Strasland.

“I have definitely seen many of these places. The Alps. Dusseldorf,” she says. “It’s all just wonderful.”

The Knights of Columbus Museum’s Crèches of Germany: Tradition & Faith runs through Sunday, Jan. 29 at the museum, located at One State Street in New Haven. For more information about this exhibit, along with other exhibits and celebrations planned at the museum, visit www.kofcmuseum.org. The Abbey of Regina Laudis has an 18th century Neapolitan Creche on display through Epiphany, Friday, Jan. 6. The abbey is open at 249 Flanders Road, Bethlehem, every day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There is no charge for admission. For more information, visit abbeyofreginalaudis.org/visit-creche.html. To find out about this year’s exhibit of the Metropolitan Museum’s Christmas tree and 18th-century Neapolitan crèche, visit www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2016/christmas-tree, tree-lighting ceremonies take place at 4:30 pm daily, with additional ceremonies on Fridays and Saturdays at 5:30 and 6:30 p.m., through Sunday, Jan. 8.