AMSTERDAM.- The Rijksmuseum will celebrate Christmas 2010 with two exceptional acquisitions that highlight the birth of Christ. It recently acquired an extremely rare silver ‘prayer nut’, containing miniature carvings only millimetres in size and depicting the birth of Christ and the Adoration of the Magi. A prayer nut was an extravagant devotional object from the late Middle Ages: two silver-plated pieces of carved wood with a diameter of 4.8cm joined together to form a round ‘nut’. At the same time, the Rijksmuseum will exhibit the masterfully carved Heilige Familie (Holy Family); a small sculpture created by Jan III van Doorne that dates back to c. 1650. The small round ball called a ‘prayer nut’ was carried around by the wealthy on a silver chain. The nut was not used exclusively for prayer, but was also displayed as a status symbol and admired for the extremely detailed carvings found insi