MIRACLE ON 34th STREET - THE SEQUEL?

Classic Christmas Movie Playbill

If you mention "Miracle on 34th Street" this time of the year, most people think about the 1947 Christmas movie about the New York City Macy's Department Store Santa Claus (Edmund Gwenn as the real Kris Kringle) and  Susan (10 year old Natalie Wood) who wanted to believe in him in spite her mother's (Maureen O'Hara) insistence that there is no such thing as Santa Claus.

But if you ask the folks who live in Baltimore about the Miracle on 34th Street, it is an amazing display of holiday lights, lots of lights, that cover virtually every row house and yard in the 700 block of of 34th Street in Baltimore's Hampden community. The annual display, which takes place between November and early January, started 64 years ago (the same year that the movie was first shown in theaters).

Hubcap Christmas Tree

This is a major tourist attraction for visitors, as many as 1,000 on a single evening, who come from near and far to see everything from unusual Christmas trees made from hubcaps or old vinyl records, animated figures, Walt Disney cartoon characters, tributes to the Baltimore Ravens professional football team, Hanukkah menorahs, trains, a metal robot nativity, plastic flamingos, and anything else that someone might consider to be symbolic of the holiday season. And did I mention the lights? There are thousands of lights everywhere in the yards, on the houses, and even strung across the street from one rooftop to another!

Even humane societies are represented

Activist organizations, like humane societies, are included as well with two adjacent houses displaying large posters featuring photographs of cats and dogs that are available for adoption just in time for the holidays. In the "spirit" of unity and helpfulness, neighbors in some cases have assisted those who have trouble affording energy costs by pulling extension cords into their own homes.

Undeniably a long-standing holiday tradition in this city, this event is in a class all by itself when it comes to the commercialization of Christmas; but this Miracle on 34th Street in no way encourages individuals to reflect upon the humble birth of the Son of God in a dimly lit stable more than 2,000 years ago.

In the "Miracle on 34th Street" movie, Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara), tells her daughter, "Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to." Compare this worldly definition of faith with the Word of God as offered in both the Bible and The Book of Mormon:

And now as I said concerning faith - faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true. (Alma 32:21)

I testify that JESUS CHRIST IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD; and if every Christmas light ever made by man would be illuminated simultaneously, they couldn't hold a candle next to the Savior and Redeemer of mankind!