{"id":140230,"date":"2026-03-17T03:03:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T03:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/140230\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T03:03:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T03:03:25","slug":"o-little-town-of-bethlehem-pennsylvania-the-story-of-christmas-city-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/140230\/","title":{"rendered":"O Little Town of Bethlehem\u2026 Pennsylvania? The story of \u2018Christmas City USA\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Father Andrew Gehringer, pastor of\u00a0Holy Infancy Catholic Church<\/a>, told CNA that his parish, which is located on Bethlehem\u2019s south side, was founded back in 1861 and attracted Catholic immigrants from all over the world who moved to Bethlehem to work in the steel industry. In the town\u2019s heyday, there were six Catholic churches within 10 blocks, he said, with Holy Infancy being the first. Germans, Irish, Hungarians, Polish, Portuguese, and Brazilian people have all made Bethlehem home over the years.<\/p>\n

Today, Mass is offered at Holy Infant in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Gehringer said the multicultural nature of his parish lends itself to numerous fascinating Christmas traditions. For example, Portuguese-speaking parishioners participate in the\u00a0\u201cNovena de Natal\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(Christmas novena), a nine-day prayerful meditation on the birth of Christ.<\/p>\n

\"Spanish-speakingSpanish-speaking Catholics celebrate \u201cLas Posadas\u201d at Holy Infancy Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which is located on Bethlehem\u2019s south side and founded in 1861. Credit: Courtesy of Holy Infancy Catholic Church<\/p>\n

A similar devotion, \u201cLas Posadas,\u201d is practiced by the parish\u2019s Spanish-speaking Catholics. The Spanish word \u201cposada\u201d means \u201cinn,\u201d and this devotion commemorates Mary and Joseph\u2019s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where they sought shelter for the birth of Jesus. Like the Portuguese Christmas novena, Las Posadas begins on Dec. 16 and involves the recitation of the rosary followed by a procession, Mass, and a celebration with a pi\u00f1ata on the nights leading up to Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really do push the multicultural flair of our parish. So we have multicultural dinners, and we have a multicultural summer festival,\u201d Gehringer continued.<\/p>\n

The priest said the town, as you can imagine, goes all out decorating for Christmas. Many of the decorations are religious, such as a Nativity scene in the center of the city, as well as innumerable Christmas trees. Gehringer said some of the parish\u2019s Spanish-speakers have been asked in years past to decorate Christmas trees for the city in the manner of their culture.<\/p>\n

The town has had\u00a0a massive Christmas star<\/a>\u00a0set up on a nearby mountain since the late 1930s, a five-pointed star with eight rays. The structure is located at Bethlehem\u2019s highest point \u2014 890 feet above sea level \u2014 and the star\u2019s LED lighting array, installed in 2010, can be seen 20 miles away. The star has become a symbol of the city, with signs throughout Bethlehem bearing an image of the star and proclaiming \u201cFollow the Star to Bethlehem Attractions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gehringer said it is special to live in a city where the religious aspects of Christmas are so widely celebrated with symbols \u2014 which, of course, include the name of the town itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some very Christian symbolism that\u2019s very prominent in our city, that our city puts up,\u201d Gehringer said.\u00a0\u201cIn some towns, they don\u2019t even allow the Nativity set.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Father Andrew Gehringer, pastor of\u00a0Holy Infancy Catholic Church, told CNA that his parish, which is located on Bethlehem\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-140230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}