{"id":67758,"date":"2025-12-22T18:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T18:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67758\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T18:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T18:56:08","slug":"magical-moment-hotel-bethlehem-to-switch-off-part-of-iconic-rooftop-sign-on-christmas-eve-eat-sip-shop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67758\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Magical moment\u2019: Hotel Bethlehem to switch off part of iconic rooftop sign on Christmas Eve | Eat, Sip, Shop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 A beloved holiday tradition is returning to the Christmas City.<\/p>\n<p>Three-hundred-sixty-three days a year, the neon red letters on top of Historic Hotel Bethlehem shine \u201cHOTEL BETHLEHEM.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the word \u201cHOTEL\u201d doesn\u2019t appear, and only the word \u201cBETHLEHEM\u201d shines in the night sky.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"bethlehem.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1276\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/69498bda8c040.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"160\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                    Hotel Bethlehem<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough Christmas night, there\u2019s a lot of hustle and bustle in the holiday season,\u201d said Bruce Haines, the hotel\u2019s managing partner, in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s important for us to take a moment and reflect on what\u2019s truly important. That\u2019s our beloved community of Bethlehem here in Pennsylvania and the miracle that happened in the original Bethlehem more than two-thousand years ago,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The sign switch-off is a tradition that started decades ago, with the hotel\u2019s management team believing it may have begun as early as the 1950s.<\/p>\n<p>Some hotel employees from that era say management stopped doing it in the 1970s. That was decades before Haines and his partners took ownership and restored the historic building.<\/p>\n<p>Haines caught wind of the old tradition in 2018 when local resident Debbie Helms told him about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought it was such a beautiful sentiment that I had to bring it back,\u201d Haines said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very special way to celebrate our history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Hotel Bethlehem sign\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/676b00d4b5597.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"113\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                    WFMZ-TV | Jenny McCain<\/p>\n<p>Historic Hotel Bethlehem is located on the site of Bethlehem\u2019s first house.<\/p>\n<p>It is where, on Christmas Eve in 1741, Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf named the town Bethlehem in honor of the place where Jesus was born.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn Christmas Eve, we attend Christmas Eve Service at Central Moravian Church,\u201d Haines said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just love when we step out onto the church steps and see only the word BETHLEHEM in the night sky. It is the most magical moment of the year and reminds us of the true reason for the season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 A beloved holiday tradition is returning to the Christmas City. Three-hundred-sixty-three days a year, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,3484,5527,11314,33738,22186,3486,3487,35804,35805],"class_list":["post-67758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bruce-haines","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-city","tag-christmas-day","tag-christmas-eve","tag-historic-hotel-bethlehem","tag-hotel-bethlehem","tag-nicolaus-ludwig-von-zinzendorf","tag-rooftop-sign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67758","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=67758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}