Holiday Light, Northern Enchanted Night

By Ivan Barnett

Chapel at Chimayo, New Mexico, by Roberto Cardinale (in the artist’s studio), 2021.  Image by Ivan Barnett.

The first time I visited Santa Fe for the holidays—back in the mid ’70s—I felt like I’d stumbled into a living lantern. The air was crisp and sweet with piñon, the sky an impossible indigo, and everywhere, light: farolitos (yes, luminarias to some), flickering along tops of adobe walls like a string of quiet heartbeats. Half a century later, the season still arrives with that same hush-and-spark rhythm, and I’m still that wide-eyed visitor, just with more gray in my beard and more gratitude in my pockets.

What endures?  Drive north toward Española as dusk unfolds, and you’ll see those small flames guiding alongside the road like constellations at ground level. The Matachines dances in the pueblos—a ceremony that moves like a centuries-old memory—remain a reminder that this season in New Mexico is older than any of us, braided from devotion, endurance, and beauty. And breaking bread with the Martínez family at San Ildefonso—chile warming the hands, stories warming the room—taught me early on that hospitality here that isn’t a performance; it’s a practice. You don’t just pass dishes; you pass time together with many paused moments.

In the ’70s and ’80s, I learned the seasonal map by heart: Christmas Eve on Canyon Road, where the gallery glow spilled onto the street; a thermos of coffee and wool gloves, because the best conversations happen when your breath is visible; late-night drives through northern towns where customized lowriders rolled slow and regal, chrome catching each farolito like a tiny star. That lowrider lineage is still here—family pride and craft on four wheels—now mixed with playlists on phones and kids filming granddad’s car like it’s sacred (it is).

Holiday spirit has little to do with region, historic Santa Fe.  Image by Ivan Barnett

Of course, some things have changed. Santa Fe is busier in December; there are more hotels, more pop-up markets, more visitors who arrive with a list and leave with a story. Cell phones have replaced the “meet me under the portal at seven” rituals; reservations book up faster; the parking gods require more offerings. But the bones—the adobe bones—hold. Light still leans gently off earth-colored walls. Church bells still stitch dusk to night. You can still step off the busy street and hear your own breath.

The gift the holidays gave me, long before I “lived” here as a permanent resident, was orientation. The land points you—to north, to home, to one another. In the sacred pueblos, the dances point you back through time. Around tables like the Martínez family’s, you’re pointed toward gratitude that tastes like posole and laughter. On those winter drives, lowriders remind you that tradition is something we make with our hands and pass along with pride. And those farolitos, humble paper, sand, and flame, keep pointing us forward, one step, one doorway, one gathering at a time.

People ask what’s different now that I’m older, rooted, and directing Serious Play. Truthfully, the season makes me softer and more faithful to the small things that outlast us: a well-tended fire, a doorway lit for a neighbor, a bowl of red, green or Christmas chile shared without asking who’s trending and who’s not. I’m sentimental about it because these are the practices that made me an artist: show up, notice the light, share what you have, and leave room for more wonder.

Will Shuster mural…Museum of New Mexico San Ildefonso Pueblo, 2021.  Image by Ivan Barnett.

If you’re visiting this year—maybe for the first time—go simple. Drive north at dusk. Watch the Matachines with an open heart. Say yes to the extra tamale. Let the lowriders teach you about care, lineage, and shine. Walk Canyon Road slow enough that the songs and the shadows find you. And if you pass a small house with farolitos marching the wall and a kettle steaming by the door, consider it an invitation—from this place to yours—to step inside the season.

Half a century on, I’m still learning from New Mexico’s winter grammar: quiet sentence, bright punctuation. May your nights be studded with both. And may the light, in whatever form it finds you, guide you safely home.

© 2025