Holiday Lights Part 2 – Albuquerque

On Christmas Eve we went out to see a neighborhood Christmas lights display. The most famous part of Albuquerque for viewing residential Christmas lights is the Country Club neighborhood near Old Town, but that can get extremely crowded. Instead, we went to the Glenwood Hills neighborhood in the northeast heights, just east of Tramway and south of Bear canyon around Manitoba St. There is a good view of the city from there also.

Many of the displays were very impressive.

In Albuquerque there is a strong tradition of putting up luminarias (also called farolitos. Luminaria means light, farolito means little lantern, and both are correct). The authentic ones are paper bags with candles inside, weighted down with sand.

Here’s a photo of a house with real ones. It’s hard to tell in the photo that they’re real, but in person it’s easy to tell even from a distance, because they are much dimmer than the electric ones and the real candle flames flicker slightly.

Here’s what they look like in the daylight the next morning:

The real ones are only displayed on Christmas Eve, and they’re a mess if it’s a rainy or snowy night. This year it rained in Albuquerque the night before Christmas Eve, but Christmas Eve was dry.

Electric plastic luminarias can be left up the whole season. Here’s a couple of photos of my house with electric luminarias along the walkway:

In Tucson luminarias are somewhat less common than in Albuquerque, but you still see a lot of them.

If you decide to buy some electric ones, I recommend the company Lumabase. They have sturdy plastic inserts you can fill with sand or water (we use water) to keep them from tipping over or blowing away. The ones from RC Company are a big nuisance to snap together, the anchors don’t work in the hard ground, they tip over in the slightest breeze, and even if you do manage to get them anchored, the plastic sheafs will come off and blow clear away. In fact, I have a bunch of those to give away if anyone wants them, lol. Now that I’ve so totally sold you on them.

Next post: River of Lights, coming up.

To send me a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

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