Mesa Arizona Temple Christmas Lights

Every year from the day after Thanksgiving until New Years Day, the Mesa, Arizona Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a huge Christmas light display. I am well aware of the time and effort that goes into this gorgeous display, because for five years, right after the lights first were displayed, I was in charge of putting up, maintaining and taking down the lights. The entire grounds of the Temple had to be rewired a number of times to accommodate the huge display. The past few years, the crowds of viewers have grown so much that special attention has been paid to restroom facilities and all other aspects of the experience. Every night during the season, there is a live musical presentation in the area between the Visitors Center and the Temple. Back then, we were not so fortunate.

During the years we helped with the Temple lights, we got to be experts at fixing light bulbs in strings of lights. We also had some really interesting experiences putting the lights up. To get the lights into the palm trees, it requires a rather high cherry picker lift. One night, the wind was blowing hard enough to sway the trees, but we were up in the cherry picker, thirty or so feet off the ground, putting up lights and fixing those that had blown loose. We did that for about three or four hours straight without a stop.

Another night, one of the huge Italian Cypress trees, about 60 feet tall, blew over in a huge storm. Miraculously, the tree fell exactly in a spot where there were no lights and no lights were damaged at all.

The main problem, early on, with doing the lights, was the lack of outlets. We ran dozens of extension cords and were constantly blowing fuses and having to re-adjust the lights.

One good experience was that my children got to turn on the lights every year for the official turn on ceremony. At the time, there was no central way to control the lights and they had to be turned on at seven or eight different locations. even though we had a person who officially turned on the lights, it really took all of the children and others to get them operating.

For those five years, from October to January, the Christmas lights took most of our time and effort. It was an interesting experience and far different from today's organized effort.