Some Nativity Scenes Are Wayyyyy Too Creative

Some news outlets and activists say there's a "War on Christmas" conducted by those who say "Happy Holidays or put up a holiday tree, instead of saying "Merry Christmas and putting up a Christmas tree.

A rubber ducky nativity scene:
Bathtub fun!

The real war on Christmas, though, is bad holiday, er, Christmas decorations. One guy, Mark Oestreicher, a youth minister, has a fun tradition of posting photos of some of the world's worst nativity scenes on his blog.


Apparently, there are a TON of bad nativity sets out there. Oestreicher has a series of rules that weed out a lot of Nativity sets from contention. His rules:

"I’ve only included nativities that were made as nativities (though there are a few notable exceptions to this rule that I couldn’t resist). In other words, I haven’t included photos of the dozens of lego nativities, superhero nativities, Star Wars figurines nativities, Barbie doll nativities, Coke can nativities, alcohol bottle nativities, and others I’ve received."

Even so, he's got Nativity scenes whose characters are all roosters, penguins, moose, frogs, rubber duckies, chipmunks, naked trolls, pink elephants, and bacon and sausage.

I'm guessing that if you give a devout Christian a Nativity set made of naked trolls as a Christmas gift, it might not be appreciated.

A sausage and bacon nativity scene to
get your hunger up

Oestreicher even shows a Nativity scene that doubles as a kitchen timer, which just has  Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus, and of course, the timer. Oestreicher's comment on this is: "Ding! Ding! Baby Jesus is Born!"

If not that, at least that batch of Christmas cookies you've got in the oven.  Same thing, really.


If the Nativity Scenes here are not enough for you, go over to Uglychristmaslights.com, where they have an archive dating back 10 years of um, incredible Christmas decorations. They are rapidly adding photos to their 2012 collection, so check back often.