The works of LaJeanne Tanner loom large over the dozens of nativity scenes in Kalispell’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The 90-year-old Alberta artist is down in the Flathead Valley to enjoy the Community Christmas Celebration, a yearly event in which the public can come see art and nativity scenes and listen to free music provided by dozens of the Flathead’s finest vocalists.

The crown jewel of Tanner’s work is a 20-foot-long mural of the baby Jesus Christ in the manger. She created the work 40 years ago and it is still used regularly at the Community Christmas Celebration.

Of course, if you ask her, it’s nothing important.

“I copied it,” she said. “I painted it on strips of brown paper in my basement.”

Tanner resists the term artist because she claims all she does is enlarge other people’s work. For the mural, she enlarged it from a magazine-sized painting to one that covers much of the wall in the gymnasium at the Mormon church.

Tanner was born in Cardston, Alberta, in 1924. Her grandparents were some of the founders of the town who came from Utah to settle a Latter-day Saints community in Canada.

After high school, she went to Toronto for a year of art school and eventually married World War II fighter pilot veteran and fellow Cardston native William Tanner. He went on to be bishop of the Glenmore ward in Calgary and it was then that Tanner painted her mural for use in her husband’s chapel.

“I started in four-foot strips and everything was squared up,” Tanner said. “I just squared it up and painted it.”

In the entryway of the church is another Tanner creation, a life-size cutout of the nativity scene complete with Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and a camel. It too is several decades old.

Tanner has family in Bigfork, so the trek down from Cardston is well worth it even at her age, she said. Christmas and family go hand-in-hand for the artist, and the free music is a nice bonus.  

The Community Christmas Celebration will take place from 5 to 9 p.m. tonight and 5 to 9:30 p.m. Friday. Guests who want to come during the day can come starting at 1 p.m. on Friday to look at the dozens of crèches and the seasonally decorated church. Some of the musical performers include the Kalispell Third Ward Choir, Valley Voices and the Whitefish Choir.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, go to www.communitychristmasflathead.com.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.