Marielos Bond remembers it was a particularly rough Christmas that launched her collection.
“For some reason, my husband was in a bad mood,” said Bond, who now lives in Alpharetta. ”Everyone in the house was impatient, I felt tired, probably wasn’t in the best mood, my kids were fighting all the time.”
It was not a peaceful Christmas, and she didn’t want it to happen again. She went out and bought seven Nativity scenes to place around her house in Panama, where she lived at the time.
It’s been more than 40 years since that Christmas. Since then, Bond, 74, has moved multiple times across Latin America before moving to the U.S. in 1988.
Her collection of Nativity scenes has grown to more than 1,000 from all over the world.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
She credits her mother, who noticed the first seven Nativity scenes during a visit. After her mother returned to Costa Rica, where most of the family lived, she spread the word and relatives began sending more.
Bond’s daughter, Hilma, gives her at least 10 Nativity scenes every year.
“I like it. It’s a beautiful tradition, she is so dedicated,” Hilma Bond said. “It helps us remember the importance of Christmas, that’s a beautiful thing.”
Marielos Bond keeps most of them in storage until the day after Thanksgiving, when she, alone, begins to take them out one by one. She does keep around 200 displayed around her house throughout the year.
This year, she decided to begin a week early. As she gets older, it takes her longer to put them out.
“Eventually, I will have to get help. I have to accept that I’m not as able as I used to be but I will try my best to get the feeling that I love getting,” Bond said.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Each Nativity scene is unique and varies in size and style. But as long as the Holy Family — Jesus, Mary and Joseph — is there, she counts it as a Nativity scene.
Hilma Bond, who lives with her mother, said she enjoys giving her mother the most obscure ones she can find.
“To me, it’s exciting because I always go on the hunt trying to find different websites or places where I can find the weird ones, the odd ones, the different ones in whatever way,” the daughter said.
Most of the nativities — about 80% — are from people Marielos Bond personally knows, with her family having contributed the most. She keeps track of each one by putting a number on them and keeping a tally in a notebook.
By taking them out one by one, she can remember who gave them to her with fond memories.
“The feeling that I had for those people, because most of them are people that I had a good relationship with, comes back. It fills me and it fills my house with the Christmas spirit, with love,” said Bond, who works at Lanier Technical College in Cumming.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Last year, she exhibited some of her Nativity scenes at her church, St. Brendan the Navigator, in Forsyth County.
It was there that people began to ask her which countries she was missing. She began to look and realized she didn’t have Nativity scenes from Brazil, Canada and Chile.
She never asks for Nativity scenes. But to complete the continental Americas, she reached out to friends and family in those three countries who were able to help her expand the collection. She hopes to continue to grow it by finding Nativity scenes from the Caribbean.
Bond doesn’t want strangers to give her the nativities because she wants to have a connection with the person giving it to her.
She said she can’t give everyone she knows a Christmas gift. So she hosts family and friends in her Alpharetta home and shows them the Nativity scene collection.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Some of the Nativity scenes were given to her by her husband, who died last year. Hilma Bond said her father was always supportive of her mother’s collection.
“He liked his house the way he had it but he gave her several so he wasn’t against it,” the daughter said. “He supported her, he let her do it.”
As for having a favorite Nativity scene, Marielos Bond she said she can’t choose.
”It’s like choosing between your kids. They are all important and they are all beautiful,” she said.
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