The Rev. Matthew Bernelli was like a kid with a train set as he showed off his famous Nativity scene, now set up at St. Andrew Church in the North End after numerous Christmases on the East Side. “It came out good,” said the Catholic priest. “I love the little details.”

There is no engine chugging along on tracks, desecrating the holy scene depicting Jesus Christ’s birth. But there is a 15-by-8-foot handcrafted tabletop landscape populated with a variety of human and animal figurines in different settings, all lovingly placed by the nearly 80-year-old Bernelli. “Some are ceramic. Some a papier-mache type thing. Some are wooden,” he said.