I had a nice chat with a gentleman from Texas, who shared with me a neat method of securing outdoor Nativity figures to guard against theft, vandalism and toppling over in the wind. He said he got the idea originally from his mother in law or perhaps his father in law, in that it came through his wife who got it from her family.
Living in a windy area, they like to tether or secure any figures they display outside and this method seems to do the trick. It calls for measured lengths of gas pipe, which is about one half to one inch in diameter along with the pipe brackets used to secure the pipe to a wall or ceiling. Usually, these are attached to a surface with short screws. What he does is measure and cut the pipe to the length needed for short or tall figures and for one or two attachments. He then drives the appropriate pipe into the ground deep enough to be firmly secure and then attaches the pipe to the figure with the screws and pipe brackets.
If he is setting up a 2D wood figure Nativity set, this is easy because he has flat surfaces to attach to. When using this method with three dimensional filled resin or fiberglass figures you must be careful to find a nearly flat surface, use short screws and proceed slowly so not to crack the statue material. This method may not work for statues with thin sections and many compound curves. Use you own judgment and be cautious. It’s not worth destroying a figure to protect it. We have discussed other, non invasive methods in this blog.