A huge star, live animals, and even a live baby make up a live Nativity scene created by a Herriman neighborhood. Photo credit: Paul Skousen
HERRIMAN, Utah — Citing adherence to COVID-19 guidelines, a couple in Herriman, Utah, has created a live Nativity scene. And they’d like their fellow Utahns to see and enjoy it as much as they do.
In a letter to KSL NewsRadio, Paul Skousen asked if we’d seen the “bright star on the hillside shining above Herriman, that can be seen from Bangerter Highway.”
Following the light will lead anybody interested to a live Nativity scene, including a “real camel, goats, sheep, pony, 3-4 Roman soldiers on horseback, and booths in the back [featuring free giveaways.]”
Wondering, like we did, how they lit a ten-foot-tall star on a hillside? Neighbors strung 500 feet of extension cord to the star in order to illuminate it.
In fact, the whole neighborhood in the area of 14948 S Lake Ridge Circle, Herriman, Utah (the site of the Nativity scene) got involved in the project once they learned of it. People donated nearly every item used in the display.
The scene is live right down to the baby, who is 4 weeks old and reportedly spent an entire two hours outside asleep in the arms of his parents.
According to the Smithsonian magazine, the first live Nativity scene was created in an Italian cave by St. Francis of Assisi in the year 1223. Historians say he worried that the ritual of gift-giving overshadowed the real meaning of Christmas.
It wasn’t until the mid-1500s that Nativity scenes moved from churches to the homes of church-goers.
You can view Herriman’s live Nativity scene again tonight (Sunday, Dec. 13) at 14949 S. Lake Ridge Circle, Herriman, Utah.