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The Christmas season has blossomed here in St George.  One of the 1st things to come around is the Jubilee of Trees.  We had several missionaries tell us about it as a "don't miss" event (among many) so we took the time to go visit it.  Only lasted a few days.  It is a display of all the Christmas trees you could possibly imagine in one place over at the St George Convention Center.  It was really something to see.

Trees of all sizes and shapes, decorated to the fullest extent and most of them, if not all, are for sale.  And the prices are not to be believed.  Not something I'd take home but unbelieveable.  Some of these went for thousands of dollars!  You buy the whole display when you buy it.

The area that had Christmas centerpieces had a lot of these candles that intrigued me.  These aren't candles.  The flame is a fragile center thing that kind of flops around with a bright lite in the middle that looks, for all intents and purposes, like a flame, but isn't.  Never seen one of these before.  They had a lot of these there.  They are really neat.  They would have lasted about 10 seconds in my house with my kids....

 

Santa's Mailroom.  Had to get that for Arlene.

 

They had a couple of model railroads there.  The scale of the downtown mainstreet was pretty well done.  Note the American flag on top of the building?  That was a digital sign that was flashing and changing.  That was pretty interesting.

 

...more trees...

 

Of course, Arlene always likes the purple trees.

 

They had an entire booth filled with small trees.  Some of these belonged to some relatives of those that work at the ROC with us.  Really nice stuff.

 

There was an entire booth filled with wreaths.  Some of them were even affordable.

 

This tree had an interesting theme.  It was all about lighthouses.

 

How could you not have a Harry Potter tree?  I couldn't get a good shot of this tree.  It was very popular and I could never get a clean shot of it.  Sorry.

 They had a big dining area in the middle and live entertainment the whole time we were there.  Lots of stuff to look at, eat and browse through.  We had a great time getting ready for Christmas.  Not even December yet!

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Catching up again.  We managed to wrangle tickets to run up to visit the open house for the new Cedar City Temple.  It is beautiful.  Oddly enough, the best time to get in and view it was Halloween night.  the other nights were all taken within an hour after the tickets were offered.  But, that was a good night to go.  Most of the children had other plans for that night.  They offered pictures of us against a backdrop of the temple so we jumped at that offer.

Not outside but who could resist the opportunity?

 Of course, pictures inside the temple are not allowed so any pictures I have are from outside.  But, it is magnificent inside the temple.  It is along the same format as the Nauvoo temple in width and height.  the basic footprint anyway.  It is about the same size.  A little bit smaller at 39,000 square feet.  the St George temple is considerably larger at over 100,000 square feet but this temple was not meant to replace the St George temple.  It's just to take some of the pressure off of the temple here in St George.  The temple here is going all the time.  I know that I always feel kind of odd that they seem to build temples in Idaho and Utah a lot and it makes members wonder why so many in Utah.  Well, the reason is that the temples in Utah/Idaho are just busier than you can possibly imagine. It's not like temples in other parts of the US where they have very few hours open due to very low attendance, hence, very short hours and few times during the day week.  In Utah they actually can't be open enough hours to satisfy the needs of patrons that attend there.  Until you have spent time in Utah, you really can't appreciate how many members actually attend sessions at their temples.  It's pretty impressive.

The tent to the left is the entrance to the temple.  The one in front here is where everyone comes out of the temple once they have completed the tour.  There were several tents for a short video prior to entering the temple for a brief overview of what temples are for and any questions.  The tents after the tour had the pictures after and displays of what went into the construction of the temple plus a small Christus statue you could take your picture  in front of.  I am guessing that will go somewhere in the garden area when everything is done and the temple is dedicated.

 

I think it gets prettier looking as the night comes on.  It'll look much better when all of the pre-dedication stuff is removed.  The tours ended just before Thanksgiving and the Dedication is scheduled for December 10th.  We have tickets to attend a remote dedication here in the St George East East Stake Center during that day.  When we can, we will be able to go up and attend a session.  the temple is in our mission so we can go.  It's about 45 minutes from here.  We don't know how busy it will be but I am betting it will be plenty busy until after Christmas.  Yes, we are planning on attending.  Half of the ordinance workers came from Cedar City but they have so many here in St George so that, apparently, is no problem for them.

 

The North side.