Renfrew’s beloved Nativity Scene is now a part of Christmas past

It was a rainy, cold Advent Sunday in the late 1980s when more than 400 people came out to Renfrew’s Low Square to celebrate the arrival of a hand-made Nativity Scene created by local volunteers.

The simple scene was their way of asking fellow residents not to concentrate on the shopping season, but to concentrate on putting Christ back into Christmas.

Although their original message still rings true today, Sunday, Dec. 5 was the first time in 34 years the front lawn of town hall is not home to the Nativity Scene featuring a baby Jesus in a manger, and sadly, there is little chance it may ever return.

Diana Wakely, who has been one of the driving forces behind the annual tradition, said a number of factors came into play, however, the underlying reason is that a new group of ambitious volunteers have failed to step forward over the last decade to lend a helping hand.

“I’ve enjoyed it every year, but I think my time of maintaining the figurines, loading and unloading the set, and all the little things that went into making it successful are now behind me,” she said. “We all get old, but it seems every year our core membership of 20 people kept losing members due to health reasons, or some have passed on. No matter how many times at every Christmas event we told people the day was going to come that the Nativity Scene will not go up, we rarely got a call from anyone saying they wanted to help.”

One of the highlights over the course of 34 years took place in 1998 when Wakely, originally from Cape Breton Island and an Ottawa Valley resident for more than 40 years, is also a professional artist and she suggested introducing life-size three-dimensional figures. Prior to the introduction of the figurines, the Nativity Scene was made of plywood.

“Sometimes in life we envision something, whether it is a painting or a house or maybe a model and we know exactly how it looks in our mind,” she said. “More often than not it doesn’t quite turn out the way we originally saw it. But when we delivered those figurines way back when, I was overjoyed. The entire scene turned out exactly how all of us envisioned.”

More than 100 volunteers helped create the figurines and that involved everything from gluing them together with papier-mâché, sanding and sculpting, painting and carefully delivering them because they could be damaged very easily.

She said the founder of the original Nativity Scene was Vern Yemen, and he was thrilled when he saw them.

“Vern was such a wonderful man and we dedicated the figurines in his honour,” she said. “When we all gathered at Low Square 24 years ago, it was raining and there was no snow. But I looked around at all the people who came out to celebrate with us.

“All the volunteers came out with their family and friends and there was over 400 people that day. I was so happy I cried for the first few minutes because I could not believe how large the crowd was. Even today I get a little weepy when I think of that.”

But over the last decade, the enthusiasm for volunteering dried up and so did the condition of the figurines.

“It may not look like it, but the entire scene is not only a lot of work to assemble, but it requires year-round maintenance and that requires someone to touch up, repair and if necessary, replace some of the characters. A lot of the pieces need to be replaced and we just don’t have the volunteers to keep it going.”

When asked to reflect on the highlights over the last 34-years and name one year that stands above the others, she laughed and said the introduction of the figurines remains her highlight.

“Here we were, hundreds of people from all walks of life coming together not only to welcome the new characters to our community Nativity Scene, but to celebrate the message of putting Christ back into Christmas,” she said. “We had so many volunteers from everywhere help build the scene, and I was able to look across Low Square and they were smiling.”

The low point was the last two years with the cancellation of the community gathering on Advent Sunday due to the COVID pandemic.

However, if there is one thing that can cause Mrs. Wakely to become an emotional rollercoaster, it was the series of events in December, 2018 when on a cold Sunday morning it was discovered the figurine depicting baby Jesus was missing.

The 10-figure, fiberglass and paper Mache scene in Low Square was set up on the evening of Saturday, Dec. 2, following the Santa Claus parade.

“This was the second time it was stolen,” she said. “It was secured with wires to his manger but when a committee member returned on Sunday morning to set up lights and equipment for the annual nativity ceremony, the figure was gone.

“It really must have been a slow news week, not just here in the Valley, but across Canada,” she added with a loud laugh. “My phone didn’t stop and for two days I was suddenly in the newspapers, on the radio and on television from Vancouver to Nova Scotia. I had family members in Cape Breton calling to tell me they were watching me on the national news.”

Her emotional rollercoaster ended on a high note three days later when a town employee found the figurine in a parking lot nearby.

“I'm very, very happy,” she said. “It renewed my faith in the town we live in.”

When asked if she would take charge of the project if a dedicated group stepped forward to help take over it, she said it will never happen.