They called it the Star in the East.
Every year, at the same time of the year, it became visible in the sky above Xjrui.
Some said it was just the sun reflecting off another planet in their Solar System. Some said that it was a comet, admittedly one with an especially accurate internal timepiece. Some said it was just one of their own radio satellites, long since de-commissioned but still broadcasting the Xjruian equivalent of Celine Dion out into the vastness of space.
Others claimed that it was aliens watching them, the government watching them, or aliens and the government watching them.
Some believed that it stood directly above a place where something special had once happened.
Whatever it was, it guided sailors to safety, helped travellers across vast expanses of desert, boosted the sales of telescopes. All in all it was a good thing.
So Xjruians began to celebrate its coming. They made little star designs and hung them in their houses. Others made bigger star designs and hung them outside their houses. And, because the Xjruians are just as dumbly competitive as we are, neighbours set out to out-do neighbours until huge expanses of the planet were lit up every year, at the same time of the year, as brightly as this:
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On the planet Zemejs, they called it the Star in the East….
Worth Doing Badly 
Good re-telling of an old story.
I’m betting we will go back to the novelty of real starlight by this time next year.