Tag: luminaria

Christmas morning: The usual post-luminaria routine is to wake up, do the presents, then go out on the street to pick everything up: gather the luminaria remove the candles, dump the sand, and fold up the bags so they can be reused next year. But there was a heavy frost last night and the bags were all pretty much soaked this morning, so Piero decided we’d just recycle them and use new ones in 2005. He’s the boss.

Our neighbor Kay Schwartz, above, was the first one out this morning, and she pretty much picked up all the bags from the upper block of Holly Street. Then we hauled everything down to the Martinuccis to pull it all apart. Most of the usual suspects were there (below). It probably takes a total of two hours to set the whole thing up on our street — more if you have to get the 600-plus bags ready first — and about the same to take it all down again.

11:17 p.m.: The lights are still lit on Holly Street. But the people who came out to walk through the neighborhood, and we had dozens who stopped by our little driveway table to have hot mulled cider, had all gone home. We stopped by the Martinuccis’ place, where all the set up stuff was piled on their front lawn, to hang out a little bit before we went home for our traditional middle-of-the-night gift-wrapping extravaganza.

8 p.m.: Between about 6:45 and 8, all the bags and candles were distributed and lit along the length of Holly Street. This kind of forgettable shot is from in front of our place, looking south to Cedar Street. Dozens of people have showed up to walk the streets this year. All the familiar faces from around the neighborhood, and lots of people we haven’t met before. Even the beat cops are coming by to check out what’s going on.

6:54 p.m. PST: The first luminaria in the neighborhood are lit. These are actually a block away from us, on Buena Street, looking east from California. All of these were in place by dark. And not only here. For nearly a half mile along California to the south and on many adjoining blocks, the luminaria were all set out and ready to go by nightfall, too. Amazing to think this has all spread from our little celebration on Holly Street, which started 13 years ago tonight. Ironically, folks on our street are just out now putting out the bags. More later.