One stitch at a time, Margaret Borg knitted a colourful nativity crib complete with a small, woollen baby Jesus and her son did the same using chestnuts instead of yarn.

“My husband always liked building cribs... so I knitted one to surprise him,” Mrs Borg said adding it had taken her two months to complete the woollen manger and the biblical figures to go with it.

Mrs Borg has been knitting and trying her hand at different crafts since she was a child. She recently looked up the patterns to make a knitted Our Lady, baby Jesus and a donkey and then improvised the rest of the characters and the manger itself.

“Once I had started, I thought I might as well finish off the whole nativity scene and surprise my husband,” she smiled.

Her husband, Paul, is a crib enthusiast and made a traditional crib that is a replica of a large mechanical one set up in Qormi.

Inspired by his parents’ passion for the Christmas tradition, their son Sebastian, came up with his own ideas too.

He made a crib out of matches tightly packed together to build the manger and the biblical characters. The other one was made out of chestnuts, which he cut and shaped to make the figures.

The family-made cribs are among the ones on display at the Christmas Village set up by Viset at the old power station at Valletta Waterfront.

Event organiser Tonio Zammit, who also has two cribs on display, said the idea of the Christmas Village was to provide a space for families to enjoy.

The village, open until the end of the month, also has a live crib and entertainment is offered for children who can also get to meet Santa Claus.