Mary and Joseph journey around Shieldfield

In Mexico there is a Christmas tradition (called Posada) that takes place through December, where figures of Mary and Joseph are passed around the community ‘travelling’ from home to home and business to business. It commemorates Mary and Joseph’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, remembering they couldn’t find a place to stay and were eventually forced to seek shelter in a stable, where Jesus was born. We are all aware of the many people in our world today seeking a place of refuge and this tradition allows us to reflect on that and how we respond this Christmas, as we remember Mary and Joseph’s journey made on the first Christmas. We are inviting Shieldfield to share with SAW in this tradition with our Mary and Joseph figures, travelling around the community organisations.

Our Mary and Joseph are a hand carved Mary and Joseph from Botswana. They’ve already had a journey to get to Shieldfield! Each Shieldfield organisation will take some photos of them visiting in their home/business and we will upload them here and on our socials in order to share the journey with everyone.

You can also look out for them around Shieldfield between 1-23 December 2022.


30 November 2022 // Mary and Joseph getting ready for their journey around Shieldfield with the SAW team

1 December // Mary and Joseph travel to the Garage Cafe

3 December // Mary and Joseph travel to the Forum Cafe

4 December // Mary and Joseph travel to Christ Church


8 December // Mary and Joseph travel with Caring Hands

Mary and Joseph enjoyed s[ending time at Caring Hands chatting with them about their plans for Santa’s Grotto next week.

10 December // Mary and Joseph travel with Gail


11 December // Mary and Joseph travel to Tigist’s family home


13 December // Mary and Joseph travel to the SAW Christmas party

Mary and Joseph got some good baby advice from Lorna who is currently on matt leave. They are hoping baby Jesus will be a little smaller than Theo…but they loved his Christmas outfit and were thinking about whether baby Jesus might suit this kind of suit in his crib.

14 December // Mary and Joseph travel to Shieldfield Pharmacy

Mary and Joseph visited the pharmacy to purchase some flu medicine in these cold times!

15 December // Mary and Joseph travel to Newbridge Project


16-18 December // Mary and Joseph travel with Tim


Please email enquiries@saw-newcastle.org for further information and to get involved.