Christmas Lights Return to Immanuel Lutheran's Steeple After 11 Years of Darkness

There are holiday lights on Romeo Plank near 21 Mile Road this month that haven’t been illuminated in 11 years. 

The steeple at Immanuel Lutheran Church hasn’t been lit since 2001, when a basement flood put a damper on the church’s annual holiday decorating tradition. This year, though, that changed when two volunteers took it upon themselves to install 2,000 lights on the church’s mighty steeple. 

“It was always a memory of our Christmas at Immanuel, and we are thrilled to be able to make it a memory for other Macomb residents as well again,” said decorators John and Diane Hamann. 

It took Hamann and volunteer Dominic Marasco six hours to put up the lights, as it wasn’t as easy as attaching lights to a gutter. The men hung cable wires and then went to the bell tower and hoisted up the star with the streaming lights connected. They used a tow rope to get to the bell tower that was attached to the tower’s window.

It was a lot of work, but worth it, said Pastor Greg Griffith.   

“The decorating families remembered it and have talked about it for a couple of years and were planning how to do it to withstand weather,” said Griffith, who describes the lights as a vision, “of the glow of the lights from the Star of David sharing the birth of the savior in our world.”

The steeple lighting tradition will continue in 2013 and beyond, Griffith said. The church also plans to set up its nativity scene in the days head.

What other decorating traditions would you like to see return?