Attleboro’s La Salette Shrine Will Celebrate 70th Christmas Festival

The annual Christmas Festival of Lights at La Salette Shrine in Attleboro is among the events most treasured by the folks of southern New England. The festival celebrates its 70th anniversary this Christmas season.

The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette was built in 1952 at 947 Park Street in Attleboro on land purchased by the La Salette Missionaries 10 years earlier. The shrine officially opened on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, 1953.

According to the Shrine website, "On September 19, 1846, the Blessed Mother appeared to two shepherd children, Maximim Giraud and Melanie Calvat, in La Salette, France, and left them with the message of reconciliation to be spread to all people in the world."

The site says, "Six years later, the apparition of Our Lady in La Salette led to the founding of a Religious Order, the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, founded to serve as a perpetual remembrance of Mary's merciful apparition."

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The annual Christmas Festival of Light, featuring more than 300,000 brightly colored LED Christmas lights, attracts thousands of families throughout the region to the 10-acre Shrine.

This year's Christmas Festival of Light, open to the public free of charge, begins at 5 p.m. on Thursday, November 23, 2023 with a countdown to illumination.

The Christmas lights will remain lit from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. daily until January 1, 2024, including Christmas night. Since traffic tends to build 30-60 minutes before opening each day, you may want to arrive early. Food is available in the cafeteria. There is also hot chocolate.

I highly recommend a visit to the Creche Museum on site. The displays are magnificent, and it's a nice place to warm up on a cold night.

More information can be found on the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette website.