PHOTO ESSAY

Garlands, wreaths, and lanterns garnish the fence and gates around the NauvooTemple; and lights form a canopy over the white sculptures of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. This simple display is a sacred reminder of the birth, life, and Atonement of the Son of God.

During this year’s Christmas in Nauvoo celebration, residents enjoyed 60-degree weather, and children wearing light-weight jackets played on the teeter-totter in the city park. Usually at this time of year, visitors brave chilling winds and frigid weather to join in the festivities.

On Friday, November 30, Mayor John McCarty welcomed in the Christmas season with the community Christmas tree lighting on the lawn of Hotel Nauvoo next to a traditional, wood-carved nativity scene.

On Friday and Saturday, visitors attended the second annual “Nativities from Around the World” display at the NauvooLDSStake Center under the direction of Elder and Sister Hawes. A television station in Quincy, Illinois, described this free event, and guests from other communities and local residents viewed a variety of family nativity scenes in a reverent setting with Christmas music played on the piano.

On Saturday, December 1, the Kris Kringle Vendor and Craft Show engaged holiday guests in the festively decorated elementary school gym. Proceeds from the bake sale were donated to the Nauvoo Betterment Association to assist with projects around town.

The Nauvoo Public Library entertained a walk-in craft activity for children inside the library and sponsored a free showing of “Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups” at Grandpa John’s Theater. Youngsters also stopped by to visit Santa at Kraus’s Furniture Store. With Nauvoo’s business district being just a few blocks long, families walked from one activity to another without the familiar big-city hustle and bustle during this time of year.

During the afternoon, the Nauvoo Community Orchestra, vocalists, and young dance academy students presented “An Old-Fashioned Christmas Musical Festival” in the LDS Visitors’ Center.

In the evening, families supported the annual Nauvoo Fire Protection District Soup Supper at the fire station with a choice of three soups, Maid Rites, and dessert. Free-will donations for this meal help Nauvoo’s volunteer fire department purchase needed equipment during the year.

Elder and Sister Heaton, LDS site missionaries in Nauvoo, led this year’s Historic Nauvoo Christmas Walk activities.

At 5:00 p.m., Historic Nauvoo ushered in the Christmas season with its tree-lighting ceremony at the LDS Visitors’ Center and the WarsawHigh School’s jazz band and choir and LDS missionaries performing

After the tree-lighting ceremony, horse-drawn wagons shuttled guests along Old Nauvoo’s Main Street with the historic buildings decorated with evergreen garlands, ribbons, and pine cones–and with nineteenth-century holiday embellishments inside homes and stores

At the PendletonLogSchool, Browning Gun Shop, Tin Shop, and Print Shop, senior site missionaries dressed in period costumes told stories of Christmases past.

During this year’s Historic Nauvoo Christmas Walk, Nauvoo Temple President Spencer J. Condie and his wife Dorothea dressed in period costume and performed in the Print Shop. Sister Condie told the story of the well-known Christmas carol “Silent Night.” She explained how Josef Mohr, assistant to the priest at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria, faced a dilemma just days before the Christmas of 1818. The church organ, which provided music for the Christmas services, was broken and could not be repaired before the Christmas Eve midnight service. What could Josef Mohr do? He remembered a poem he had written a couple of years earlier that expressed the wonder of the Savior’s birth. He asked his friend Franz Gruber, the church organist, to compose the music for the poem and they would sing it together with Gruber accompanying them on his guitar. Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber first performed this now-famous Christmas carol during the St. Nicholas Church Christmas Eve midnight service in Obendorf, Austria, on December 24, 1818.

After Sister Condie recited the “Silent Night” story, President Condie played the guitar and sang the first verse of this hymn in German. He then invited everyone to join in singing the verse in English. Mohr and Gruber’s “Silent Night” found a new setting in a community that came into being two decades after the creation of this beautiful hymn. The words and music again brought light and peace into the hearts of those who listened in this Historic Nauvoo setting.

The Cultural Hall provided the setting for a live nativity presentation. This performance reminded guests that the Savior began his mortal journey as an infant born in humble circumstances, with the birth foretold and celebrated by earthly and heavenly worshippers. Nauvoo site missionaries dressed as Mary and Joseph, shepherds, wise men, and angels presented in word and music scriptural accounts of the Savior’s birth.

In the streets outside the storytelling sites, Christmas carolers entertained guests around fire barrels that invited walkers and carolers to warm their hands, even though the temperature hovered around an unseasonably 60 degrees.

This year Nauvoo Temple missionaries even performed the live nativity.

Guests savored homemade cookies and tasty cheese balls, dips, crackers, vegetables, and hot chocolate in the FamilyLivingCenter while they chatted or listened to music performed by missionaries

Thanks to the annual Christmas in Nauvoo celebration, individuals and families can slip back in time to small-town scenes of Christmases past and ponder what the Christmas season truly means. Nauvoo residents invite guests to join them in future Christ-centered Christmas celebrations that welcome in this sacred holiday season.

Rosemary Palmer is Nauvoo, Illinois, correspondent for Meridian Magazine.