STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
The angels wore stocking caps under their halos. And the camels trod through snow, not sand.
But per tradition the Archangel Gabriel stood before Mary, rather than sending her a text, to tell her that she would bear a son that would save the world.
And the Three Wise Men arrived by camel, rather than the white car parked outside Cristina’s Restaurant on Christmas Eve with the license plate “Wisemin.”
A few hundred people turned out for the Life Church’s fifth annual Live Nativity.
Set against the beautiful backdrop of Carbonate Mountain, the hour-long tale of Christ’s birth was played out with donkeys and sheep and cherubic angels who sang how some children see him lily white, while others see him bronzed and brown or almond-eyed.
The pageantry was downright balmy this year as temperature hovered around 35 degrees, versus the five degrees spectators shivered through last year.
Fifteen-year-old Devon Peterson, who spent two years fighting leukemia, took her place in the manger as Mary, while a six-month-old baby was presented to the crowd as Jesus as wispy clouds drifted across a half-moon.
“It brings another version to Christmas,” said Evelyn Albrecht, the nativity’s director. “After all, without Christ, there wouldn’t be Christmas.”
CHRISTMAS EVE RAINBOWS ATOP BALDY
The Bible tells us that God set his bow in the sky as a sign that he would never again send a flood to destroy the earth. And, later in the Bible, the rainbow is used to symbolize the coming of Christ.
In that vein, rainbows have come to symbolize hope and promise, a sign of good things to come.
If that’s the case, there’s a lot of good coming Sun Valley’s way….or lots of pots of gold hidden on Bald Mountain.
Early morning skiers on Bald Mountain on Christmas Eve were witness to not one, not two but five rainbows, apparently caused by ice crystals falling through the air.
Two of the rainbows were giant bows that seemed to arch from Lower River Run to—fittingly—the Christmas chairlift.
One rainbow snaked through the air bisecting the first two.
And then there were two smaller rainbows that crossed through the other three, providing a memory at Sun Valley Resort that will be hard to top.
Almost as good as the Northern Lights!