We are in Ascensione, a hamlet of Costa Serina, on the itinerary of the fifteenth-century church, reachable from the mule track between the Via Alta and the oldest route of the Via Mercatorum that joins Nespello to Fondra.
It is here that, for the past 26 years, Christmas night has become magical.
This year the “Amici del Presepio” (“Nativity Scene Friends”) group has staged the living crib.
Objective was that to remember and revive the ancient times with its realities of daily life: the ancient crafts; the values of friendship, union, sharing and solidarity, recalled in the night of divine light.
Everything starts around a fire: it is here that, in the cold winter evenings, the people of the village gathered to meet and be together.
Around the fire
Walking through the houses you will find the meeting places, the inns where you can eat a few slices of salami with the indispensable polenta and a good glass of wine.
Gathered around the table
Polenta, salami and red wine
Everywhere people work and here are the ancient crafts:
The blacksmith:
The women knit on the doors:
The cheese is prepared
The farmer raises his cattle with love
“Tridadura” (chopping up) the hay
The carpenter
Bricks are produced here
Here the instruments are sharpened
The wool is carded and the mattresses are sewn
Grain grinding
The shoemaker
The barber
The tinsmith
Stone grain milling and olive grinding
Fruit, vegetables and fabrics
At school
Antique objects of daily use: the iron, the sewing machines, the pans, the work tools and even a wooden high chair.
It was music in the streets …
The water was drawn from the well
At midnight the image of the Nativity closes the representation
This is the Christmas of Bethlehem lived here in Ascension in the Brembana Valley.
