Maltese cribs are known to be pretty fascinating, with many crib makers experimenting with different statuettes and scenarios to spice things up every year. However, this particular guy created quite the stunning crib in his London home. We reached out to Charles de Giorgio-Miller who told us a very sweet story about how it all came to be.

Charles' crib-making roots

“I have lived in London for 56 years but was born in Paola. I used to always watch Dad making them and as I turned out to be creative like my dad, I’ve always enjoyed putting out the crib at Christmas,” Charles shares with us. He says he still has memories of the one his Dad made in Paola decorated with fairy lights in the front room of their house, all those years ago. “I’d like to think that if my Dad was looking down that he’d be proud of this one,” he says.

“When my partner and I moved to our house 9 years ago, I decided to make the biggest crib I’ve ever made. I built it in our garage and it took me three months to build. I display it in a spare room upstairs and getting it out of the garage every year and up the stairs is always a challenge but it’s well worth the effort as I love the response that I get from my family and friends who always enjoy coming over to my house specifically to see it.”

Changing things up

Charles has visited Malta many times since moving and admits he always makes a quick dash to a particular spot to update his statuettes. “I always buy extra characters from Hamrun every time I come to Malta for summer holidays,” he says. “So now that I’ve retired, last January I decided to make the crib even bigger for this year’s Christmas and use up all the new characters that I bought. So I made six independent units which stack up each each side. Whereas the main original piece is made from a big cardboard box, newspapers, glue, sawdust and plaster.”

“The six add-ons are made from polystyrene which I carved to look like bricks then plastered over in some areas. The roofs are made from patiently cutting up little tiles from cardboard or hand moulding little Spanish type styles from modelling clay,” Charles explains.

“It was a labour of love but very rewarding and I used it as an outlet for my creativity. It usually takes me a day to set it all up with lighting and after Christmas is over, another day to wrap the figures and the crib up carefully to safely store everything away for next year.”

What do you think of this awesome crib?

Charles de Giorgio-Miller