Little lord Jesus, fruitcake-style: the worst nativity scenes of 2017

This year, the sausage roll will be hard to beat.

In the search for 2017’s worst Christmas nativity scene, the infamous ad from bakery chain Greggs – where the baby Jesus was replaced with a large sausage roll – may be impossible to top.

It was widely ridiculed when it was released in November, prompted an official apology and was labelled a “sick, anti-Christian advent calendar” by a rightwing pressure group.

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But with Christmas approaching, more contenders – some terrible, some so bad they swing back around to good – have stepped up to challenge for the crown.

Efforts have drawn attention for their odd or misshapen human figures, which inevitably give off Ecce Homo, terracotta Jesus head or Ronaldo statue vibes.

Take for example “workout Jesus”.

Or Derbyshire baker Lynn Nolan’s very impressive Bethlehem, made entirely from fruitcake. The six-month project involved 100kg of icing and marzipan, 250 eggs and four litres of whiskey.

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Unfortunately, fruitcake may not be the best medium for human bodies.

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Animals, on the other hand, were uniformly good additions to the traditional tableau. From Dublin’s dog nativity ...

... To this surly New York cat, captured by photographer Brooke Goldman. Like workout Jesus, it seems to use the same stock Joseph and Mary figurines.

Other nativities gone wrong include the Tennessee play that saw a girl dressed as a sheep kidnap baby Jesus.

And the story of Stormy the cow, who was the star of a live nativity in Philadelphia, but escaped to roam the streets – twice.

The seven-year-old cow escaped from her pen at the Old First Reformed Church of Christ at 2am on Thursday, making it on to the interstate highway before Philadelphia police brought her back. Four hours later she was on the loose again.

“I wasn’t trained in seminary for lassoing cows,” said the local pastor, Reverend Michael Cane. After her second escape, Stormy was replaced with a smaller cow called Ginger who was less likely to escape.

Even the Vatican’s official nativity has come under fire.

This year’s effort features a 21-metre Christmas tree and statues of the seven corporal works of mercy, acts that include burying the dead and clothing the naked.

Unfortunately for some observers, the resulting nude man in the middle of St Peter’s Square was deemed offensive.

In Spain, a more explicit scene was created when vandals in Boadilla del Monte, near Madrid, rearranged the local nativity to imply an overly passionate embrace between Joseph and Mary, and between the animals accompanying them.

The People’s party, a conservative Christian democratic political party, called it “a clearly intentional, offensive attack against religious freedom”.

In direct man-bites-dog form, a Canadian man last week claimed to have seen a nativity scene inside a sausage roll.

Paul Ritchie told local media he cut into his kielbasa wellington on Wednesday night and saw in the sausage, olives and pastry a nativity scene where Jesus was a slice of capsicum.

“I was walking my dog, Chester,” he said. “A couple hours later and I said ‘Chester!! I know what that was!’ ”