CANDLES IN THE WINDOWS..AND IN YOUR YARD

As the Holidays wind down, and the decorations disappear from people's homes, I feel a sense of loss.
During the Holidays, everything is so bright and happy with all the lights everywhere....then, it gets dark again....and I wonder...does that mean that people, too, feel bright and happy with all the visible lights and then sad again when they are all gone?

Well, one thing I do is to keep a "candle" in each of my windows all year long. They are called "welcome lights" here in the Midwest and mine are battery operated at this time with a sensor that causes them to light automatically as soon as it starts getting dark and shut off at sunrise. They flicker, just like a real candle. (ahh, technology!)...I love them!
But I used to have the steady-burning electric ones. I've done this for decades and I never come home to a dark house.

When I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in September of 1989, with my daughter and my three year old grandson, I carried this tradition with me. I put my electric candles ...the welcome lights....in each window and they were lit every night..I didn't see any other homes with these in the windows, but didn't think too much about it.

We'd been there for about a month when one lovely Fall day I was outside working in the yard. I looked up from raking leaves to see two little girls, about 6 and 8 years old intently watching me.
"Hi," I said.
"Hi," they giggled
I watched them for a minute to see if they would say anything else. They didn't, so I continued raking the leaves.
Then, the older girl asked, "Don't you have any electricity?"
Puzzled by this question, I stopped what I was doing and stared at her, trying to figure out what prompted this off-the-wall question.
"Yes, of course we have electricity. Why?"
"Well", she answered, "Every night we see those candles in your windows and we just thought you must not have any electricity."
I didn't want them to feel stupid so I didn't laugh out loud...although it was all I could do to control myself......I just explained why the candles were in the windows and that they were powered by electricity. The girls went on their way, satisfied by my explanation. (The next Winter, I noticed many other homes in our neighborhood with candles in the windows!)

And, what these people in my adopted state taught ME follows:

I was fortunate to live in Albuquerque, New Mexico for six years and Christmas was a season of lights everywhere...but, most wonderful is the tradition of the luminarias! For those of you who aren't familiar with this, let me explain: you take ordinary brown paper lunch bags, fold over the tops about 2 inches, and you put about 2 cups of ordinary sandbox sand in the bottoms of each one. Then you nestle a votive (not a tea light) candle into the sand and light it. You line your driveway and the sidewalk on either side and your lawn with them. You only do this on Christmas Eve, and they have to be lit by twilight because the purpose for this is to light the way for Mary and Joseph as they make their way to the stable for Jesus's birth. (Remember, this is New Mexico with a very high Christian...most especially Catholic...Hispanic population.)

When I moved to New Mexico from the Midwest, I had never seen this before. We moved there in September of 1989. On Christmas Eve of that year, I looked outside around 4:00 pm and noticed all of my neighbors putting out these little bags, lining their driveways, walkways, and lawns with them. I had no idea what they were, but it looked interesting. I asked one of my neighbors what they were doing and he explained the tradition to me. He said that they all had to be lit by dusk.
Sure enough, right before dusk, everyone was outside lighting these candles inside the bags. I watched in absolute fascination as all over the neighborhood, home after home was illuminated with these bags of light. And then it began to lightly snow.

Now, Albuquerque has wonderful weather. It has a pretty high elevation, but it doesn't get radical weather because it's in the middle of the state and the nasty weather tends to go around. That Christmas Eve it had snowed, just enough to make it white, but not enough to be harsh. Maybe about 1" or so.

Around 6:00 that evening, I put on a light jacket....it wasn't freezing cold...(not the bone-chilling cold of the East and Midwest)...and walked around our neighborhood. My footsteps were the only ones that marked the snow as I walked along the sidewalks, and then I smelled this wonderful fragrance in the air......it took me awhile to identify it: cedar and pine. Fireplaces were going and the main woods of this area are cedar and Pinon....or pine...but, not ordinary pine. You will not find this breed of pine in any area other than the Southwest. (In fact, because you can't find it here in the Midwest, when I went out to visit friends in NM in the Fall of 2004, I decided to drive rather than fly, and loaded up the whole back of my car with cedar and pinon wood just so I could have it to burn here...and I hoarded it, burning just a few pieces at a time so I could smell them...I just burned the last piece last month, Dec '07.) I am going again this coming Summer and I will again load up my car.)

I walked for quite awhile, just looking at all the luminarias lining every driveway and lawn in every neighborhood for blocks....it was absolutely magical! If ever I had a doubt about moving to NM from here, it was gone then. (Why and how I made the decision to move there at that time is another story for another blog. If anyone wants to hear it, let me know.)

Anyway, that tradition made such an impression on me during the six years I lived there that I have brought it here and still do it to this day in my Midwestern home town every Christmas Eve. Only,.... one thing I have added: All my family, friends and neighbors are invited to my home each Christmas Eve for a Mexican feast and the lighting of the luminarias. But, on the bags, each person is invited to write the names of someone who has passed on, or someone still here for whom they wish to offer a prayer up to Heaven. It is a remembrance honoring those we love and have lost, and those who may be still here, but need a little prayer to direct them. It's so comforting.

In the turmoil of our present world, I think anything like this that can give us a little bit of comfort is worth doing. Any time we can put light out into the universe it's a good thing....So LIGHT THOSE CANDLES!

Love to all of you who visit my site....Good night and sweet dreams!!