Luminarias

Even though this is a little out of order, as it occurred on Christmas Eve, the Monkey wanted his fans to get a peak the New Mexican tradition of Luminarias.

-Nighttime settling in on the luminaria tour - Gordon's house and his 800 lamps are already well lit and shining. Ours are still warming up-

We placed about 200 paper bags containing a bit of dirt and a tea candle around the perimeter of our front yard, along the driveway and around the various planters. We also created some abstract designs. Our neighbor across the street had over 800 on his house. They were on the walls, parapets, smoke stack - basically every level surface. Pretty much everybody in our neighborhood was involved in this - a few didn't - and everybody made sure to walk their dogs on those properties a little longer the next day.

-Our house now in full light-

- Another view of our house, with Gordon's in the background - we will have to match it next year-
-A shot down our street-

The streets were closed around 5 pm and a tour route created. Local police monitored everything. PNM turned out the neighborhood street lights, everybody turned off their house lights - or put the shades down - to let the farolitos be the only source of illumination. Then the line of tour buses and cars started to roll through - and lasted until midnight at least. It was pretty to see the lines of luminarias stretching down each street. The country club even had a few hot air balloons inflated and glowing.



Torben and company walked around the neighborhood taking in the sights and even crashed a few parties. It was great.

There were a few technical issues with our little lights. We should have used votive candles instead of the little tea candles - our farolitos were a little dim. Next year will be better.