With lights, music and Christmas figures in their home, Guillermo Escamilla and his daughter Karen welcomed the San Diego Red team to present their now traditional but unconventional Nativity scene.

"When I married my wife, God rest her soul, I asked her if she had a Nativity Scene. She said yes, I had a small one, which she showed me in a shoe box," Mr. Guillermo said.

With this little story is how 28 years ago the Escamilla family, residents of Tijuana, began to build the famous birth of Jesus, counting today with up to 25 large boxes where hundreds of Christmas figures, lights and objects are stored that once assembled allow you to appreciate it from their living room to the kitchen.

"She (his wife) fell in love with everything she saw of Christmas and wanted everything, but there was a moment when we commented: hey, we don't fit anymore, if one day we want to move to another house, where are we going to store everything, we won't fit anywhere," said the father of the family.

This year, the Nativity scene of these Tijuana natives has various Disney characters, fireworks, towns full of snow, fairs, houses, as well as children and adults walking down the street while Santa Claus flies through the starry skies with his reindeer. And without missing the most important thing: the manger.

As part of its own touch, in this magical and extensive Nativity scene you will also see Harry Potter's Hogwarts Castle, characters from the Wizard of Oz and obviously the Grinch.

"The idea of putting themes to it has been emerging by Karen, she is fond of acting, singing, dancing. So the first idea we came up with was to create the Wizard of Oz. Right now is the third year that we present the Wizard of Oz on the Nativity scene".

According to Mr. Guillermo, the pieces have been bought and some have been gifts. And despite not placing the more than 500 little houses they have, because they don't fit, this father and his daughter take between two and three weeks to assemble this scene.

However, they claim to enjoy this, because it is not only a tradition but it allows them to be together, they have the same objective (to build it) and at the same time they remember the moments they spent together with his wife.

"They are moments of thinking, of meditating, of creating, of thinking about something else; because right now with what we are living, it is something very difficult to be only with that idea of what will happen to us, how will everybody be, all that depresses you. So the fact that you occupy your mind in something creative relaxes you a lot and fills you with satisfaction because you can give life to something that does not have it," he said.

One of the things that has influenced this way of seeing Christmas and in its way of Setting up the Nativity scene at this time of year, is living in a border city, since "the two cultures are combined, and that has led us to have an image of the dual Christmas", mentioned Karen's father.

If you are a Christmas lover and don't want to miss this experience that this family has created in Tijuana, you can visit them from 6:00 to 8:00 at night at Calle Linda Vista #13651 Fracc. Electricistas. You have until January 15 to see it.

Also, due to the COVID-19 pandemic still present in the city, we also invite to watch them through their YouTube channel, just click here..

"We are open to those who would like to come and share with us this is a personal satisfaction for us, and something that my wife would have loved, to come and see her Nativity scene," said Mr. Guillermo, who added, "share with your family the moments we are living on Christmas, not thinking about the bad, thinking about the good".