For This Military Family of Faith, a Nativity Collection Is More than a Seasonal Aside

Just like the original tableau—a feeding trough, angels, shepherds, lowly animals witnessing a miraculous birth—Lori Hawkins’ foray into collecting nativity sets began humbly.

She was a child when a cherished aunt and uncle from Minnesota mailed a Christmas gift to her home in Virginia. Lori unwrapped and examined the present quizzically: ceramic figurines of Mary and Joseph, three wise men, two lambs, and the baby Jesus—the tallest of the eight pieces measuring about an inch.

“She’s an artsy, crafty person, but I thought it was kind of unusual to give a 10-year-old a nativity,” Lori remembers.

She stowed it away after the holiday.

That was more than 50 Christmases ago, and it would be another 11 before she’d begin collecting nativities in earnest. Today, Lori’s growing portfolio delights friends and neighbors. And while she’s not precisely sure of how many she possesses—more than 40, maybe upwards of 50, coming in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, materials, and countries of origin—she’s fully aware of the joy they invoke.

But here’s what’s most important: for Lori, a former master trainer for the Army Reserve Command, 61, and her husband Leonard—a retired colonel who’s 69, and known to most as “Hawk”—the creche collection is more than a hobby, more than just holiday ornamentation. Because theirs is a family with a lived-in faith, the holy birth of a savior is a year-round focal point, not a seasonal aside.

A yearly tradition

The Hawkinses have lived on a corner lot in Gates Four Golf & Country Club since 2005, and after all these years, decorating for Christmas is something they’ve mastered. The process begins just after Thanksgiving. Lori and Hawk hire kids from church to assist around the house; it’s decorated inside and out and includes one lighted outdoor nativity. There’s also a 9 1/2-foot-tall artificial tree, adorned with ornaments they’ve collected over the years.

Lori alone handles the nativities, unpacking and arranging displays on shelves and on tables she clears in the home’s main living area. At least a dozen countries of origin are represented. In France, for example, on a visit to a cathedral, she and Hawk purchased one made from blown glass. Updated photos she takes each year include any new sets and help guide her to what goes where; each individual nativity bears a hand-written notation or sticker providing background about its origin.

“I make sure everything is just so,” she said.

The first Lori herself added to the collection was just prior to Christmas 1985. She was pregnant with her first child, her son Scott.

“I said this is going to be for him, for my child,” she remembers. “So that nativity always has a special place, because it was the original one.”

Adding to it became a Christmas tradition. When Lori uses the word “snowballed” to describe the collection’s growth over the last 15 years, she does so without irony. She tries hard not to dampen the enthusiasm of friends who eagerly purchase, and give as gifts, unique nativities they find in faraway places. (She’s simply running out of display room.) Nativities made from unusual materials interest her, but at this stage, she and Hawk don’t buy just any nativity set they see—“just something that’s totally different or unique.”

This helps explain their most recent addition: the couple was in Ohio visiting family and went to Hawk’s sister’s church, where a group traveling from Israel was displaying handmade creations.

“And they had this nativity,” Lori said, “and it was absolutely gorgeous. But it was big. And I told Hawk, ‘You know, we’re not buying any big ones anymore.’ And it was hand-carved and it was $1,200. I said, ‘We are NOT buying a $1,200 nativity!’ I said it was too big—it won’t fit on the shelf, right? The rules are it has to stay on a shelf.”

Hawk, though, wouldn’t let it go. He bought it.

“It’s so intricate,” Lori said. “It’s unbelievably gorgeous, just so intricate.”

Christmas decorations stay up until the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6); nativities are packed away around February 1. The couple, deeply involved in the ministry at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Hope Mills, also observe traditions there: Lori plays guitar, and Hawk sings, each year for the children’s mass on Christmas Eve, the midnight candle-lit mass that evening, and the Christmas Day mass.

A community affair

The smallest in Lori’s collection was a gift from neighbors Luiz and Andrea Correa, who live catty-corner from the Hawkinses. It’s carved from a pistachio shell and was acquired in Colombia.

That tiny nativity—“It’s as big as the nail on your pinkie finger,” said Andrea—is just one she and Luiz have acquired and gifted to Lori from their international travels. Sets from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the Caribbean islands are among them, expressions of love and appreciation for Lori and Hawk.

“Well, our relationship is beautiful because they have really adopted us,” Andrea said.

The Correa family moved to Fayetteville when Luiz, a fertility specialist for the Army, was assigned to Fort Bragg. Lori and Hawk immediately took to the couple and their two daughters.

“We had no one here, and she just stepped in,” Andrea said of Lori. “And our girls love Lori and Hawk. They call them ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa,’ and we started coming over for dinner. Lori had nativity sets around, and I love nativity sets because we are both Catholic. And it’s something my mom also loved very much. And I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I know what to get her!’—and every time we travel, the first thing we do is to try to find a small nativity set for grandma.”

Andrea tears up talking about her own mother’s brain cancer diagnosis, and how Lori embraced her when Andrea had no family nearby.

“She took care of all of us,” she said. “Lori used to bring us food every day … She took care of the girls. She’s just a very giving person, and once you’re in her circle, she makes sure that you’re well taken care of. Having her in our life is a blessing.”

Andrea’s mother, Luz, passed away last February. Her young daughters never met Andrea’s father, and with Andrea’s and Luiz’s families mostly living in Florida and New Jersey, having Lori come in “during all of this craziness” has been more than a blessing.

“Lori has fulfilled all this emptiness in our family,” Andrea said. “It’s been beautiful for the girls to have this role model of a person who’s so giving and so loving.”

An enduring love

Every Christmas, a tinge of bittersweetness that accompanies setting up the display makes the redemptive message of Yuletide even more real. Scott, Lori’s firstborn—the child for whom that first purchase of a nativity was made—was a product of her first marriage, a union that resulted in three children over 16 years before a divorce. Hawk, whose 32 years of military service included 18 in active duty and 14 as a reservist, was also divorced when he and Lori met (read more here). A 20-year union with his first wife produced four children.

The nativity Lori purchased for Scott all those years ago gets attention; it’s not only one of her larger sets, but it’s colorful and includes a wooden manger that Lori decorates with pine straw. Ornaments she bought for him include a tree-topper (a teddy bear holding balloons) and another that became his favorite: a man sitting on a couch with a soda and a TV remote, which she got when Scott was 21 years old.

He died tragically in an accident in 2013 at the age of 27. Lori never got to tell him goodbye.

“Sometimes people say, ‘Oh, where’d you get that one?’ Or, ‘Tell me about this one,’” she said of Scott’s nativity. “It’s … it’s very difficult … I would not have survived without my faith, because I know that Scott is with the Lord, and if he could come back, he wouldn’t.”

Hawk also knows the pain of losing a child: His daughter Marjorie died in 1991 at the age of 21 months in a drowning in the family’s swimming pool, sneaking away from the family hours after her first swimming lesson.

Lori speaks for the couple when she talks about coming to a point where she’s at peace with the loss. “It took a long time,” she said, “because nobody expects to bury their own child. It’s not the way nature normally works.”

But it is part of life, a life that brought them to Fayetteville on what was at first supposed to be a two-year assignment for Hawk. That turned into nine years, and they chose to remain in Fayetteville after Hawk’s retirement because of connection: They’d made many wonderful friends and loved being a part of the parish fellowship at Good Shepherd.

Lori’s daughter Kristine and three granddaughters live just a half mile away, and they’ve become like family with Andrea’s and Luiz’s girls. In addition, Lori’s parents—Bob and Martha Seep—also live nearby (Hawks’ parents are deceased), and together they have family within a day’s drive in Tennessee, Maryland, Florida, and Ohio.

“After spending 32 years in the Army, we like the close connection with other military families, and Fayetteville offers us that opportunity,” Lori said. “Over the last 20 years we have watched it become a great place to spend our retirement years.”

Read CityView Magazine’s “The Holiday Issue” December 2025 e-edition here.