originally published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News December 23-24, 2006
By Judith L. Brown
In Albuquerque, where I grew up, the local custom at Christmastime is to outline your house, driveway and walkways with luminarias. A traditional Mexican/New Mexican luminaria is a lunch-sized brown paper sack with a cuff rolled down at the top and weighted with a little sand in which is embedded a piñon-scented votive candle. The candles are lit on Christmas Eve, symbolically lighting the way for the Christ child to enter your home. The soft glow of wavering candlelight through brown paper lends a feeling of warmth and welcome to this special night.
The luminaria displays in the historic Old Town part of Albuquerque, with its traditional adobe architecture, were always breathtaking. In that part of town every house, as well as the shops, restaurants and of course the 300-year-old Catholic Church lining Old Town plaza, plus the walkways and gazebo of the plaza itself, were all lined with luminarias. The overall effect of an entire community outlined with glowing luminarias, lighting up the dark winter night, was magical.
Nowadays I’m told that Old Town’s narrow roads are jammed with commercial tour buses and that the “locals” tend to stay home. But when I was growing up, many families in Albuquerque — mine included — went every year for a Christmas Eve drive around Old Town. For the rest of my life I suspect that, come Christmas Eve, I will feel the urge to go on a drive.
Not only have Albuquerque’s Christmas Eve luminaria displays been “discovered,” but luminarias gradually have come to be found in communities all around the country. You can buy them in catalogs, with electric lights instead of candles, and with paper bags in different colors and decorated with various cut-out patterns. Luminarias can be found adding their glow to Christmas Eve here in Moscow too.
Our first Christmas in Moscow was Christmas 1987. My older — then only — son was 5, almost 6. It was a Christmas Eve with new-fallen snow on the ground, and very foggy. My husband wanted to sit tight at home, enjoying our beautiful Christmas tree and a cozy fire. But I yearned to go for just a short drive.
We climbed the Sixth Street hill and — what a delightful surprise — beheld a house with luminarias lining the front walk and porch steps.
The next year, there were a couple of houses on Indian Hills Drive with luminarias, and several others sprinkled around town. Every year there were a few more.
At some point, Moscow’s luminarias began to be concentrated in the neighborhood around Grant and Cleveland Streets, just north of F Street and the junior high. This neighborhood must have a strong sense of community because some years every house for several blocks running has put out luminarias.
One snowy Christmas Eve we were driving slowly down Grant or Cleveland Street, admiring the lovely displays, when we passed a Santa who waved at us. At first none of us paid much attention. Many yards have moving displays: grazing deer who lift and lower their heads, giant Homer Simpson-as-Santa balloons that sway and bob in the wind, and let’s not forget the fishing Santa out in his boat most years on a lawn near F and Orchard streets. So, like I said, at first we paid no attention to this particular Santa who waved at us. But then….
“Hey,” we all realized almost simultaneously a few houses later, “that Santa was real!”
We looked out the car’s back window and, sure enough, there was Santa trudging through the snow into the distance.
“I wish we had some cookies for him,” one son said.
Every year since when we’ve gone on our Christmas Eve drive, we’ve taken a small bag of cookies with us, just in case we should see Santa again. But we never have.
This Christmas Eve, as is our tradition, my husband, sons and I will attend the Christmas Eve service at our church. We’ll spend an hour or two in that beloved community, celebrating the meanings of Christmas. Then we’ll pile into the car for a drive around town to admire the Christmas lights, taking special pleasure in whatever luminarias we see.
And we’ll have some cookies with us.
* Judith L. Brown is an economist and director of the Idaho Center on Budget and Tax Policy. She lives in Moscow with her family and can be reached at jlbrown@turbonet.com.