Nativity Scenes in Quebec

The word and its other meaning

In Quebec French, the nativity scene is called la crèche, or la crèche de Noël, as in France. The Quebec dictionary Usito gives it with no regional label in the sense of the Nativity, and crèche vivante (living nativity) appears there too, with the same meaning.

But in Quebec the word has a second meaning that doesn’t exist in France. Until the 1970s, a crèche was also a home for abandoned children and orphans. There was the Crèche d’Youville in Montreal, run by the Grey Nuns, and the Crèche Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Quebec City, run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, which handled a large share of Quebec adoptions between 1920 and 1970. To an older Quebecer, “he was raised at the crèche” has nothing to do with Christmas, and the word still carries that weight.

The usual meaning in France (a daycare for toddlers) doesn’t exist in Quebec: people say garderie, CPE or pouponnière. Usito actually labels that meaning as specifically French.

A late arrival

Under French rule, the nativity scene belonged in church, not at home. Religious orders, especially the Jesuits and the Ursulines, brought it over, and it was all about Midnight Mass: people came to admire the nativity set up in the middle of the chapel.

At the Hôtel-Dieu in Quebec City, every ward had its own, with its wax Infant Jesus: a beeswax baby with glass eyes and real hair, dressed by the nuns. The oldest known goes back to the 17th century: the Augustinians of Dieppe had given it to their sisters for their first Christmas in New France. The Child was laid down only on Christmas Day, the Three Kings added at Epiphany.

But the most beautiful picture of the Nativity to come out of New France isn’t a nativity scene. It’s a hymn. Around 1641–1642, the Jesuit Jean de Brébeuf wrote Jesous Ahatonhia, “Jesus is born,” in the Wendat (Huron) language. In it, the Christ Child is born in a bark lodge and wrapped in a rabbit skin. Hunters stand in for the shepherds, and chiefs from far away bring fox and beaver pelts instead of gold, frankincense and myrrh. It was sung until 1649, then kept alive by Huron survivors for nearly a century before being published in French in 1907. English speakers know it as the “Huron Carol” (“’Twas in the moon of wintertime”), from Jesse Edgar Middleton’s 1926 version. Who wrote it is still debated: some credit Paul Ragueneau.

The nativity at home, though, is fairly recent. Sources disagree on exactly when (around 1875 for some, the 1930s for others), but they all place it between the late 1800s and the years between the two World Wars, about the same time as the Christmas tree. So “we’ve always done it this way” isn’t quite true.

Something else changed at the same time. Until the 1880s, the big French-Canadian holiday was New Year’s Day. That’s when families exchanged gifts and shared a big meal, while Christmas was mostly about Midnight Mass. Priests and reformers didn’t like how rowdy New Year’s could get, so they promoted Christmas as the quieter, family holiday. When Santa Claus took over from the Christ Child as the one who brings presents, nationalist and Church leaders pushed back. A 1937 text still calls Santa “the Baby Jesus of modern times.”

Under the tree

In Quebec, the nativity usually goes under the Christmas tree. Not on a side table, not on the mantel, not in another room: under the tree, at a child’s eye level. Usito even uses a line from novelist Suzanne Jacob to illustrate the word: “Serge spent hours in front of the crèche under the tree.”

That detail explains a lot: the figures are rarely taller than 4 inches, and there’s no built scenery. A Provençal crèche is a landscape you build and add to year after year. A Quebec nativity is a group of figures on the floor, much like in many American homes.

Bears instead of the ox

When Quebec artisans make a nativity scene, they make it local. Bears and foxes take the place of the ox and the donkey. The materials come from the land, like volcanic lava and moose antler. And the scene fills up with lumberjacks, fiddlers and Indigenous figures in the snow.

One workshop took this idea all the way. Les Santons de Charlevoix, founded in 1983 by Bernard Boivin in Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive, borrowed the Provençal name and format: clay figures about 4 inches tall, molded, fired and hand-painted. But instead of a Provençal village, they portray the Charlevoix region: the painter Clarence Gagnon, the writer Félix-Antoine Savard, the legendary runner Alexis le Trotteur, local trades and the church of Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive. They sell the set as a “crèche québécoise.” Université Laval has added the workshop to its list of Quebec’s living heritage.

The other tradition is woodcarving in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli. There, in the 20th century, the Bourgault brothers (Médard, André and Jean-Julien) started a movement that trained generations of carvers and kept the village going. The church nativity is the best example. The sculptor Benoit Deschênes got about fifteen artists together to carve it in basswood, and it was presented to the parish on December 12, 1987. It has grown piece by piece ever since, and in 1994 Jacques Bourgault added a pregnant Mary. The parish calls it “a nativity that continues,” and that’s exactly what it is.

The wax Infant Jesus figures have almost disappeared. The Monastère des Augustines in Quebec City keeps a collection, along with the plaster molds, glass eyes and hand-curled hair used to make them. Only one nun, Sister Hélène Marquis, still knows how to make them, and no one is lined up to take over.

Saint Joseph’s Oratory

Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal in Montreal has one of the largest nativity collections in the world: more than a thousand sets from about a hundred countries. Published numbers vary by source and year, so we go by the Oratory’s own.

What surprises visitors is that it’s open all year. The exhibition “Une crèche, un monde” (One Nativity, One World) is permanent, and the museum is open every day, in July just as in December, for a few dollars. About a hundred pieces from five continents are on display, with the rest in storage. Most nativity exhibits are a December thing. Here, you can drop by on a Tuesday in August.

It didn’t start with a collector. In December 1950, a Christian Christmas Committee, a group of Montreal businessmen who wanted to “put Christ back in Christmas,” set up a life-size nativity in front of the Oratory. Bishop Paul-Émile Léger blessed it, and it was broadcast on the radio on Christmas Day. People found it rough, so in 1951 it was replaced by life-size plaster figures by the Italian-Canadian sculptor Joseph Guardo, whose work went on to inspire parishes across Quebec. The museum started its nativity exhibitions in 1976, first as contests for schoolchildren, then by acquiring sets from private collectors and Montreal’s many immigrant communities. After forty years outdoors, Guardo’s worn nativity was moved in 2018 into the crypt church, where it fits better.

The collection really does go around the world: giraffes and zebras instead of the ox and the donkey in African nativities, and tortoises watching over the Christ Child in one from the Seychelles. Since 2017 there’s even a “hipster” nativity, with Mary in leather pants holding a coffee cup and taking a selfie with Joseph while the Three Kings ride in on Segways. The curator, Chantal Turbide, points out that this is nothing new: artists have always dressed the Nativity in the fashions of their own day.

What disappeared

The Quiet Revolution, Quebec’s rapid move away from the Church in the 1960s, all but ended the home nativity. The number of priests and religious, at its peak in 1961, had dropped by half twenty years later, and Quebec is now the least churchgoing province in Canada. As people stopped going to church, the nativity at home mostly disappeared too, and Christmas in Quebec today is largely secular.

Midnight Mass, though, held on. It’s still the most deeply rooted Catholic service of the year and draws the biggest crowds, even in the province where the fewest people go to church. That’s the key point: going to Mass together on Christmas Eve lasted. The nativity in the living room didn’t.

One village shows this clearly. In Rivière-Éternité, in the Saguenay region, Jean-Marie Couët started a nativity exhibition in 1989 in the basement of the town hall. It grew to include nativity scenes from all over the world, added an Artists’ Park in the middle of the village, and drew fifteen to eighteen thousand visitors a year for nearly thirty years. In summer 2017, only three hundred ninety-three came. The organization sold its collection on November 11 and 12 that year, and about a thousand nativity scenes went within days to collectors in Quebec and the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region. La Pulperie de Chicoutimi bought two hundred. The president at the time, Thierry Roncen, put it plainly: religious heritage, he said, just isn’t as popular anymore.

American readers might expect a church-and-state battle here. There wasn’t one, at least not over nativity scenes. Quebec’s debate was about the crucifix, taken down from the Blue Room of the National Assembly on July 9, 2019, when the state secularism law was passed, and about religious symbols worn by public employees. The nativity was never the issue. It faded because people lost interest, not because it was banned. That’s the exact opposite of the United States and France, where nativity scenes end up in court precisely because towns keep putting them up.

Where to see them

There aren’t many places, and most are run by volunteers. But two of them are worth the trip, even if you’ve seen plenty of nativities in Europe.

The Saint Joseph’s Oratory Museum, Montreal. The only major nativity collection in Quebec, open every day all year, for a few dollars. Start here.

The outdoor nativity at the Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec. In the basilica’s garden, in the heart of Old Quebec, since 2017: some twenty life-size figures and animals, camels included, spread under three shelters you walk through. Free, run by volunteers, from late November to early January. The set, handmade in the Philippines, was donated by Marguerite Cusson.

“Crèches d’ici et d’ailleurs,” Sainte-Pétronille, Île d’Orléans. About a hundred nativity scenes from Quebec and elsewhere, some a century old, at the Foyer de Charité Notre-Dame d’Orléans. Free, in December, afternoons and evenings.

The Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Beauvoir, Sherbrooke. From 2007, Father Michel Bouffard showed his nativity scenes and Christmas villages there every other year, brought back from all over: Romania, Bangladesh, Japan, Kenya, Israel, Provence. Free. The last edition we could verify: December 2019. The Marist Fathers who ran the site announced their departure in June 2020; the sanctuary itself remains open. Call before making the drive for this exhibition.

Saint-Alphonse Church, Thetford Mines. An exhibition in the church basement, organized by the religious heritage interpretation center of the Appalaches regional municipality, which sometimes runs until mid-February, long after everything else has been packed away.