I knew I'd been too sick this year to add anything to my Three Kings Day/Three Kens Day display, but I expected to at least have the energy to drag it out and put it up. But it just didn't happen, so as I was looking through pictures from over the years I thought I'd throw together a sort of retrospective.
The concept is that it's supposed to resemble the Nativity plays I have such fond memories of as a kid, and give me something to do from Christmas to Epiphany.
The first year was right after I'd found the three Malibu-era Kens at the Salvation Army, and the little bag of silk tuxedo hankies for their costumes at the used sewing supplies shop, that were the inspiration for the project.
The angel didn't even have a purpose-built dress yet; it's a muslin from another project with some gold braid tacked on. The three gifts are hypothetically in the chest, like the Little Prince's sheep or Schrödinger's cat. The doll playing GI Joseph in those days had an ill-filling neck/head joint that had to be covered by a scarf, and the baby was played by an anonymous tiny porcelain doll (I don't remember where it came from, but I do remember having to scrape a ton of glue off its head after I peeled off its wig). I filled up the stage by bringing home the little tree from my desk at work. And as you can see, the Kens had been through the desert on a horse with no mane.
The second version saw the biggest expansion! Mattel's Baby Krissy, the Kriss-child herself, became the star of the show. The angel got a brand-new dress, sausage curls, and golden wings, and the horse went to the salon for a mane wig and tail extensions, and was fitted for a glamorous saddle blanket. The Kings got individual gifts, and King Myrrh tried out a new hat. And lo, newcomer Shepherdess Skipper abided in the field with a stuffed sheep and polymer clay crook. The backdrop - an old desk drawer - got turned around for a makeshift stable.
This time, the angel was rocking a blowout instead of ringlets and traded the horn in for a harp. King Gold had a new belt, King Myrrh was on his third hat, and the gifts were still being tinkered with. GI Joseph was recast with a doll who had a beard with a lot of character and a neck joint that didn't need covering up, and Mary had a much nicer veil. The shepherdess's outfit was jazzed up with a belt and sheepskin stole; I never got around to a full reroot but I did glue some bangs on her. I dressed up the stable with some Spanish moss.
The most recent display was big, but some key pieces came up missing in the move to my current place. The stable is gone, so I rigged up this theater curtain backdrop. It was OK, I guess. The horse also apparently ran away. (I found a new one at the reuse center last summer, but she'll keep for next time.)
I added a second angel, so now we can have the horn AND the harp. King Myrrh is actually a new doll that matches the old one but has two good legs, so he doesn't have to lean on a cardboard peg-leg under his robe. Skipper has lost her shepherdess crook but gained a new sheep. The gifts, tinkered with yet again, sit on a box covered with the old horse's blanket. The set is dressed with stable paraphernalia: tools, crates, barrels, and the bale of hay the Holy Family is sitting on.
King Frankincense is the only character unchanged since the beginning. Sometimes you get something right.
Some close-ups under the fold. Image-heavy.
