Christmas traditions and hobbies become pieces of art for 2 Regina men

Orazio Giannini has spent months individually hand crafting pieces for his Christmas Presepio, an Italian Nativity scene, which has been a long-standing family tradition.

"My dad used to build the Presepio. When we first came to Canada, he brought it back from when I was a child in Italy growing up. All of the pieces ended up to me,” he explained.

Giannini wanted to create a piece that truly depicts Bethlehem. He said it took over 240 hours and 10 weeks to create.

It fully came together in October.

"The buildings are made of Styrofoam, so putting the pieces together and then to actually make it look antique. The sausages with clay and drying them out with a string in between and making sure that each link is perfect. The figures are three and a half inches. Everything has to be to scale,” he explained.

He isn’t the only one with a creative eye and a similar hobby. Larry Lindemann has been collecting Christmas homes for over 40 years.

"It's delicate work. I'd say it took me a couple of hours to get them painted. Build this because you've got to glue everything,” he said.

Larry Lindemann's collection has grown to over 100 houses. (Angela Stewart / CTV News)His collection has grown to over 100 houses.

"Some I got from special places where you order them online. Others I just pick up at different stores. The houses that I have range in price from maybe five dollars to 100 and something,” he said.

He also crafted a snowy mountain from scratch using plaster and gradually collected tiny human figures, all to scale of the homes.

"Section by section it becomes a village or a town,” he said.

He plans to continue his collection.

For Giannini, he isn’t planning on giving up his creations either. He hopes to carve more pieces to add to his Presepio.