Carmelite Monastery Open House
and Bake Sale hosts Italian Nativity designer
Three new Fontanini Nativity figures available this year are (l-r) Moriah, Naamah and Felix.
JACKSON — One year Giselle Champlin received not one piece of Fontanini to add to her Nativity set. “I cried,” she said. “It just didn’t seem like Christmas without Fontanini.” Champlin’s mother started collecting the Nativity figures and pieces in 1980s.
“I got my first piece from my mom,” Champlin said, “and fell in love with it. My mom still buys them for me.” The mother and daughter attend Clinton Holy Savior Parish.
An art major in college, Champlin now has nearly 50 pieces of Fontanini in her Nativity set, animals, and surrounding landscape with villagers. She admires the workmanship that goes into figures from the House of Fontanini in Italy.
“They just feel so real, they are so detailed. The designers have spent a lot of time recreating the event,” said Champlin, who won’t place the baby Jesus in the crib until Dec. 25, Christmas day.
From 1-4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 23, Fontanini collectors can meet Marco Fontanini of the House of Fontanini who will autograph their figures.
The special event is expected to bring in over 1,000 people, many of them long-time collectors registered with the monastery.
The monastery’s open house and bake sale weekends will continue until Sunday, Dec. 23. On sale are rum cakes and loaves and raisin bread loaves.
The gift shop is the main source of support for the Carmelite sisters.
On Saturday, Nov. 17, Ivy Callegan (left) and her daughter, Giselle Champlin, examine “The Christian Mother Goose Book of Nursery Rhymes” as a gift for Callegan’s three-year-old grandson, Ryan, at the Carmelite Gift Shop in Jackson.
Sister Dona Marie Degnan, gift shop manager, stacks boxes of new figures on a shelf.
Visitors at the Carmelite Gift Shop look over the large variety of Fontanini creche figures available for purchase.
