CARY — Where can one make a trip around the world in one day? In Cary.

A retired school teacher and avid traveler is displaying the more than 200 Nativity figurines she has collected during her past 50 years of travels.

Previously displayed at her home during the holidays, Mary Hazel Weissinger decided this year she would show the display to the rest of the world.

If you go

Mary Hazel Weissinger’s more than 200 Nativity sets will be on display at Goodman Memorial United Methodist Church, 12726 U.S. 61 North, Cary, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Dec. 19 and from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday and Dec. 20. Admission is free, but donations will be accepted for the Cary Cemetery Association.

“It’s gotten so big so this year, we decided to have a showing at the church,” she said.

The display will be open to the public this weekend and next at Goodman Memorial United Methodist Church. Display hours will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Dec. 19 and from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday and Dec. 20.

Weissinger has Nativity sets from countries on six of the seven continents. “I haven’t been to Antarctica, but I hope to go,” she said.

Weissinger began collecting in 1954, when she received her first Nativity set from brother Guy Mattingly, who was living in Germany at the time.

“He knew I loved them, so he sent them,” she said. “I had one or two little, bitty ones that I loved, but I didn’t really collect before that.”

Since, Weissinger has made it a duty to pick up a set or a figure in each place she visits.

“I like people’s work,” she said. “It’s fascinating to me what people can do.”

She has figures from Nigeria, Korea, Venezuela, Haiti, Russia, Greece and many other places.

The figures in her collection are made from a variety of materials — scrap paper from Vietnam, beeswax from Germany, black coal from Kentucky, as well as wood and ceramic.

Her favorite, she said, is a hand-carved wooden, 19-piece set from the Italian Alps. “I bought the first piece from a father who carved during the wintertime and had sold it in Florence,” she said. “Every time I went to Florence, I went to the same shop to gather more pieces.”

Over a course of 12 years, she visited four times to complete the set.

Another favorite is the hand-carved, olive wood set she picked up while in Bethlehem.

“I was glad I found it,” she said.

Visitors will also find sets such as one picked up during a 2008 trip to Nepal. It was made by the country’s Gurung people, who used recycled wood products, corn husks and bamboo to create the manger scene.

Admission to the display is free, but donations will be accepted for the Cary Cemetery Association.

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Contact Manivanh Chanprasith at mchan@vicksburgpost.com