Farolitos

The Christmas Eve Farolito Walk is a Santa Fe tradition that started in 1971, partly to celebrate zoning ordinances that limited development in the central neighborhoods. (The Spanish word, "barrio" no longer seems fit to describe the tony neighborhoods along Canyon Road and Acequia Madre.) Canyon Road is crowded with visitors and locals, and this year the street was filled with around 4 inches of slush.

The side streets are calmer, and it is there that the tradition retains its original flavor. An elementary school has built a labyrinth on the playground with thousands of farolitos, literally, "little lanterns", which are small paper bags ballasted with sand and each holding a candle. (Farolitos are not to be confused with luminarias, which, the old-timers will tell you, are the box-shaped stacks of pitch wood that burn brightly and fill the air with the signature aroma of burning pinon. The candle-in-the-bag farolito was actually introduced by the Chinese!)

Street lights are extinguished and traffic is blocked for the evening. Neighbors sit by the road; some are giving out free hot cider and the traditional bizcochitos, the tiny anise-flavored Christmas cookies that are New Mexico's "state cookie". Many of the people strolling the back streets sing carols and stop for a while to warm up near a blazing luminaria.