Joseph Smith’s Birthday – Celebrate it Much?
December 23, 2010 5 Comments
We generally do a little bit of celebration on Joseph Smith’s birthday and I’m curious if anyone out there might do the same. We usually make a cake and that’s about it. On the 200th anniversary, we got more into it, with a quiz (by me) a dinner by my wife and various fun signage around the house + a sing in or at least everyone sang happy birthday that year.
We put up an aluminum pole. Have feats of strength followed by the airing of grevanances.
Years ago many wards celebrated his birthday with a special program in church. In fact, we celebrated so much that nonmembers criticized us as favoring Joseph Smith over Jesus. Frankly, I’m glad we don’t do that anymore.
That’s interesting. I’ve never been in a ward that had any kind of acknowledgement of the date unless perhaps it fell on a Sunday, when someone might mention it in a talk or lesson.
I really don’t have an official celebration of the birth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. However I always mark it on my calendar and on that day I take a few moments and think about what he did and how grateful I am that it truth was restored. It is also kind of a special time for me as my mom passed away 3 years ago on the 20th of December. I guess you could say that December is a month where I have many changes to think about what others have done for me in the past.
My ward celebrated it in 2005 in connection with the memorial broadcast from his birthplace that was done by the Church. There was a cake decorated by a sister in our ward with Joseph’s likeness (from one of the more modern paintings that the Church uses). Other than that, no, I’ve never done anything special.