About the Event

Together let’s celebrate 75 years of being Christmas City, U.S.A!

Greetings

On behalf of the Citizens of the City of Bethlehem, it gives me much pleasure to welcome you to our historical City, of which we are justly proud. It is our sincere wish that you will enjoy the many places of interest as designated by this guide pamphlet and that your visit will be one which you will recall with many pleasant memories.
~ROBERT PFEIFLE, Mayor. 1938

“We the citizens of Bethlehem, feel that the Bethlehem of Pennsylvania is the traditional Christmas city of state and country. We do not say this to exclude a single American community from the Christmas spirit. Massachusetts does not exclude Arizona from the spirit and observance of Thanksgiving, nor does Philadelphia begrudge to other communities the commemoration of Independence Day. But Massachusetts can at the same time share Thanksgiving and remember that in Thanksgiving it was founded. And the cities which created our government can share our government and remember its origin in the deliveration of the creating cities.
“So, we in Bethlehem do not claim that Bethlehem created Christmas. Nor do we do anything but admire and appreciate the Christmas spirit of our neighboring cities and towns in our great Nation.

We do not say Bethlehem created Christmas. What we say is that Christmas created Bethlehem.

“Our Bethlehem – The Bethlehem of the New World- has in its very name a tradition of hope upon which rests the thesis of Christianity. Add to this the traditions associated with the naming of our Bethlehem and you cannot help but realize that here is a community which must not fail to remember the circumstances of it’s birth.”

~Vernon K. Melhado, President of the Chamber