24: Luz

It's Christmas Eve, the big Advent enchilada, and all I got left is sand, votive candles, and a bunch of brown paper sacks. Pretty humble ingredients, but believe me they collaborate to create the warmest glow in the known galaxy.

Home, where no storm clouds rise.

Luminarias, or farolitos if you prefer, get plonked out every Christmas Eve on the house, the yard, the fence, the chicken coop, the llama barn, or whatever. As any rural New Mexican (which is to say most New Mexicans) will tell you, it can be quite a job if you live on a big plot and have a bunch of sand you need to get rid of.

Budget beacons.

Luminarias, the story goes, are points of light after dark to guide the holy family home. So a landing strip on a shoestring, circa 1AD. 

Most every Christmas, I find myself standing at the end of a luminaria-lit path in the dark just before midnight. At this moment, no matter where I am (there have been a few places now), I always feel like I have found my way home at the end of a long year out in the big world.