Sunday, December 23, 2012

Farolitos, Tamales and Holiday Traditions

A farolito is a small paper lantern–traditionally a candle set in some sand inside a paper bag, but sometimes made of plastic and electric lights.   Outside of Santa Fe and parts of Northern New Mexico, it is also called luminaria. 

They are part of the Christmas tradition around here. Below is my attempt at capturing the effect of the roofs and adobe walls lined with farolitos in Santa Fe.  

Holiday Lights


Here's a photo of farolitos along Canyon Road on the right is from the Chasing Santa Fe blog. The Christmas Eve farolito walk along Canyon Road is another tradition (read more about it here.

One of the pleasant side-effects of living life a bit like a tumbleweed is that wherever you tumble, you are exposed to new traditions and ... you can hang onto the ones you like and make them part of your own tradition. 

I am especially susceptible to the FOOD traditions. 

The Christmas Eve meal along the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France often includes oysters on the half-shell.  My nod to that tradition will be steamed mussels at my house–probably Rachel Ray's Mussels in Mexican Beer

My plan for Christmas day lunch is a local holiday tradition: Tamales.  I'm making these Pork and Red Chile Tamales.

Whether your traditions are new or old, I hope you enjoy a lovely holiday.   

2 comments:

Linda said...

How beautiful! We have luminarias around here, too, but not in the scale that you do.
Merry Christmas to you! Enjoy your tamales. (We're also having tamales. Yum!)

Kate North said...

I'm with you about adopting food traditions. I've not been so much a tumbleweed as you, but we do live outside a huge city with many ethnicities present, so it's great for exposure to new food things - and other traditions, too, but it's the food ones I really take to!

Happy Christmas!

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