SALT LAKE CITY – Temple Square lit up Black Friday, turning on their annual light display to hundreds of eager onlookers.
Over one million lights decorate the grounds and campus surrounding the Salt Lake Temple. It’s a tradition for the LDS church dating back to the 1960s. But it’s also a tradition for public too.
“It’s family,” says Tooele resident Jennifer Miller. “It’s the beginning of Christmas. We wait to start doing anything for Christmas until after Thanksgiving, and this is the beginning.”
Codie Miller and his family have been coming since he was young. He says he has fond memories of watching the twinkling lights, and decided to pass that tradition on.
“It started with my little old grandma,” says Codie. “She’d make the whole family come as a group. We decided to make it our own family [tradition].
Crews begin in August putting lights on the trees. The grounds also have nativity scenes from all over the world.
“There’s just a real peace at temple square and then you put the Christmas lights into it and it just awakens your spirit,” says Pocatello resident Ralene Redford. “It’s a cool place to be on the night they turn the lights on.”
The lights come on at dusk and turn off between 10 PM and midnight, every night through December 31st.
