This time of year, you could not forget it is Christmas in Maria and Vitor Furtado’s house. The tree is beautifully decorated. The couch is covered in festive pillows. There are decorations everywhere.

However, the centrepiece is an enormous Azorean Nativity scene called a presépio. It takes up an entire corner in their Paget living room, almost touching the ceiling. Mrs Furtado, 69, had to get a ladder to arrange its upper heights.

In addition to the birth of Christ, it also shows different biblical scenes such as Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana in Galilee.

Mrs Furtado started putting up the Nativity in her house 40 years ago. Originally from Lagoa, Sao Miguel, the Furtados had just moved to Bermuda after a decade living in Canada.

“That first year in Bermuda was very difficult,” she said. She was homesick.

“We lived near John Smith’s Bay,” she said. “The water pump in the house kept breaking. That did not happen in Canada.”

Her mother sent her a Nativity that reminded her of the Azores.

“That first one was very small and simple,” she said. “I decided to go bigger the next year.”

She wanted to reflect more of the biblical Bethlehem and Nazareth. Over the years her presépio grew in all directions.

There are more than 50 sheep, goats, chickens, cats, dogs, donkeys and many human figurines in the arrangement.

Most of the tiny people in her presépio are handcrafted by Fontanini, a firm started in Tuscany, Italy in the 1800s.

Mixed in with Ms Furtado’s biblical people is a wizened bald man, painting a little figure – Fontanini founder Emanuele Fontanini himself.

“These figurines from Italy are expensive, not just to buy but also to ship here,” she said. “Shipping alone for one figure in a little box is $30.”

Mr Furtado thought she had enough people in the scene, and told her to stop buying them.

“I only bought this one,” she said putting her finger to her lips.

However, her husband quickly spotted the newcomer.

“He said, I see you have new people,” Mrs Furtado laughed.

Each Fontanini creation comes with a name and back story. Talking about the characters in the Nativity, Mrs Furtado sounds like she is discussing the neighbours down the street.

“This lady here is married to that guy over there,” she said pointing to one couple. “I forget what his name is. That little boy there is their son. That one is Elizabeth. That one is Ruth. That one is a carpenter.”

Roman soldiers guard several buildings and King Herod – the king of Judea when Jesus was born, holds court.

She also has some things in her Nativity sourced from closer to home, such as plastic animals purchased from Brown & Co. She made a little loom with wool for one character to weave. She dried berries found outside and attached them to a tiny palm tree to make it more realistic.

The hardest part of the project was the running water in the centre of town.

“That was a real headache,” she said. “At one point it started to leak. Now my husband says I have to keep an eye on it to make sure it is not leaking again.”

The presépio is very much a shared project between Mrs Furtado and her husband. He crafted all the buildings, helped with the arranging and did the heavy lifting.

It takes about three weeks to put it all together, and there is some grousing between them as they do it. He does not put things where she wants them. The gravel she ordered cost him more than $60.

“We started out putting sand down to look more like the desert,” Mrs Furtado said.

Unfortunately, the Furtado’s cat Rosie mistook the presépio for a remodelled litter box. After that mishap, it was gravel all the way.

“Rosie does not like the feel of the gravel under her paws,” Mrs Furtado said. “My husband always says this is the last time we are doing this. Then he sees some paper or some other material and says, oh, let us keep this for next year.”

For 20 years, Ms Furtado worked as a housekeeper for the Irish Linen Shop in Hamilton, while her husband worked at the old Palmetto Bay Hotel in Smith’s.

“When he got his long-term residency he went into the construction business working for himself,” she said. “When my daughter had her children I left work to take care of them. Then I developed heart disease.”

Three years ago, she had open-heart surgery.

“Now I am retired,” she said. “I have seven grandchildren all in their teens. They love to come and look at the presépio. They say wow, it is so big this year.”

She is looking forward to entertaining her family over the holidays. In the Azores it is traditional to open gifts on Christmas Eve, after midnight mass. However, because her grandchildren are getting older they now exchange gifts during Christmas Day lunch.

“Then it is bags and paper everywhere,” she laughed. “It is so nice to have everyone together. It is my favourite time of year. I told my husband and my daughter, when I die, remember me at Christmas.”