Few things are a more certain sign that you are, in fact, a Utahn than possessing memories of walking through Temple Square’s annual Christmas lights display. Around here, the display of thousands of lights central to the holiday season is so central that it is, in fact, known simply as “the lights.” As in, “When are you going to see the lights?” Or, like a New Yorker talking about the Van Wyck Expressway during rush hour: “What? You’re trying to drive through downtown at this hour? You know you’re gonna hit ‘the lights’ traffic.”
The memory goes like this. You are likely a very little person, bundled up like Ralphie’s brother in A Christmas Story, moving through the most people you have ever been around in the slow slogging pack of your family. You’re whole family. We’re taking mom, dad, cousins, aunts, heck, even grandma made it out for another year.
“You have to go,” your mom tells you. “It might be grandma’s last year.” Which is your first existential dilemma. “What did she mean by ‘last’ year?” But there’s no time to explore the intricacies of mortality because you need to “get your little butt in the car now!”
But wowza! Every teeny twig of every tree on Temple Square is blazing with lights. Christmas hymns play around the grounds, lending a solemn, important air to the occasion. Grandma is smiling at you, telling you stories about her first experiences seeing the lights, lighting up as she sees you light up.
Temple Square Lights Surround Religious Reenactment
At the center is, of course, the Nativity, the focus of a timed show that goes off like Old Faithful every half hour as the manger and creche are lit with a spotlight and a booming, sonorous voice pronounces to the Wise Men:
Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Mind. Blown. You even forget for a moment your theories about what’s in that big box under the tree. (Hopefully, Legos.)
Dad has a thermos of cocoa. As you sip and hold back your brother from his repeated attempts to escape into the crowd, you notice that everyone you love and who loves you is happy and full of that Christmastime joy that becomes more and more elusive as we age, and becomes imprinted in your mind.
This, you now understand, is Christmas.
Bright Future
Since 2019, Temple Square has been undergoing a massive renovation that stemmed from important upgrades to the seismic safety of Temple. While construction has limited access to some areas in previous years, new sections have been reopened. This year, the Main Street Plaza, office building plaza, and the new gardens north of the Tabernacle will be open. The project is to be done next year with the grounds and Temple re-opening fully in 2027.
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