Family Weekend at Hershey, PA, Jan. 22-23

If you resent the selling down the river of Hershey Chocolate, I obviously share your feelings. But the people of the town of Hershey deserve our support. They have a lot to share with visitors, and on January 22 and 23 they are having a Community Weekend to which we are all invited. It should be good for families and family members--from the youngest to the oldest--and it features huge discounts on some of the town's most esteemed attractions.
Whatever you think of the current state of affairs in the Hersey Chocolate Company, the story of Milton S. Hershey and his vision still remains the story of his namesake town. Learn the basics of The Hershey Story at the Museum on Chocolate Avenue, at a 50 per cent discount for these two days only. This will bring admission fees down to $4.50 for seniors over 62, $5 for adults, and $3.75 for juniorss ages 3-12.
ZooAmerica North American Wildlife Park, founded by Milton S. Hershey himself, offers a chance to encounter some 200 animals. On Community Weekend admission will be free. Visitors, as usual, will be encouraged to become ZooAmerica members, and will be shown ways to become involved in the life of the institution.
Last but not least is the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum--a favorite with just about everyone. Considered to be one of the nation's newest and largest automotive museums, it features restored automobiles, buses, and trucks from about 1900 to the 1970s. Situated just off Route 39, one mile west of Hersheypoark Drive, it is a member of the Smithsonian Institution Affiliates Program. For the Community Weekend admission will be an across-the-board $5 per person over four. Featured during the weekend, among other exhibits, will be "Ash and Maple Marvels," 29 wood-bodied automobiles ranging in date from 1914 to 1953. They literally don't make them like that any more!

Christmas In Bethlehem on the Lehigh II

When people think of Christmas here, they generally think of a Moravian Church Christmas. This represents the heritage and traditions of the small church whose members founded the City of Bethlehem in the 18th century. I don't know how much is old and how much is later, although the great Moravian music that is performed in the Christmas season certainly must be among the oldest elements of the holiday. When I think of a Moravian Christmas, I think of candlelight and choirs, and the famous Moravian trombone choir which--often playing from the belfry of Central Moravian Church--adding a special note of majesty to the occasion. And I think of joining the congregation in song as we all lift our beeswax candles high in the air at the end of the Moravian College Christmas Vespers... I was only there once, but I kept the stub of that candle for years.
But there were other Christmases to celebrate. This was especially true as "the Bethlehems", north and south, became a massive steelmaking center, with other significant industries thrown in. Immigrants poured in by the thousands, from many countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central and South America. I have attended a beautiful Russian Orthodox service, with music for unaccompanied choir, and listened in on a joint holiday vespers sung by the choirs of the two Slovenian churches, Catholic and Protestant. The Spanish congregation of Holy Infancy annually staged Las Posadas, a Puerto Rican depiction of the Holy Family's search for shelter.
Christmas was an international holiday in Bethlehem in Bethlehem then, as I hope it is now. I do know that there is now an 11-year-old Luminaria night, which gives a bow to the simple outdoor holiday lighting of the American Southwest, and raises a lot of money for good causes. Luminarias are a Spanish-American tradition in the Southwest, but here they are for you to enjoy regardless of your ethnicity. Our Lady of Pompeii/Holy Rosary Catholic Church once staged an annual Christmas pageant in the middle of E. Fourth St. At a certain point--since E. Fourth St. was then a state highway--it was taken over by the City, moved, and --some say--gentrified. I have not heard of it lately, and am not sure it survives.