The light of Bethlehem’s Christmas star high on South Mountain doesn’t quite reach Upper Bucks but it can be seen for more than 20 miles north of the city.
It’s become an icon for the three-centuries-old city nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
It’s a focal point of the Christmas City USA bus tours that have been carrying thousands of tourists through the city for years
Like many Upper Bucks Countians, I go to Bethlehem frequently and when I’m there in the evening I always look up to see the star.
Although it once was lit only during the Christmas season, now it shines all year long, a happy reminder of the holidays. It always makes me wonder at the bravery of the Moravian pioneers who founded the city in the wilderness on Christmas Eve in 1741.
The Moravians are big on stars and versions of their lovely and distinctive 25-point star hang all over the Christmas City and beyond. It’s not unusual to see them lighting porches on old homes in Upper Bucks—and tourists from all over the world buy them in the city to light their own homes. They come in all sizes and materials, but usually in that special shape with its 25 points, sometimes even more.
It’s not possible to visit Bethlehem and not see a Moravian star somewhere. The star’s origin dates to the 1830s at a Moravian boys school in Germany, perhaps as a geometry lesson.
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