Santa Fe on Christmas Eve

Santa Fe at Christmas is not decorated so much as illuminated, and the difference matters. The farolitos, small paper sacks weighted with sand and lit with candles, line the adobe walls and rooflines by the tens of thousands, the little bonfires called luminarias burn at the gates, and on Christmas Eve the whole city turns out to walk Canyon Road together in the cold, which is, by common consent among people who collect such things, the most beautiful holiday evening in America. Everything below assumes three nights around the holiday itself.

Stay in the historic district within walking distance of the Plaza, since the season happens on foot and the December nights make driving between things a waste of the show. The old adobe hotels dress their lobbies with pinon fires and their portals with farolitos, and the inns along the eastside lanes put you inside the postcard. The holiday week books far ahead, so reserve in summer and consider the days just before Christmas, when the city is fully lit and not yet fully arrived.

Christmas Eve on Canyon Road is the main event, and it asks only that you show up dressed for the cold. The galleries open their doors, the bonfires burn along the half mile of the road, carolers cluster at the corners, and thousands of people walk slowly uphill and back down again, drinking cider and greeting strangers, under more candlelight than most lifetimes otherwise supply. Arrive at dusk, park nowhere near it, and surrender to the pace, which is the pace of the whole crowd and cannot be negotiated.

The days around the walk hold the rest of the season. The Plaza wears its lights, the cathedral runs its midnight mass to a full house, the pueblo dances open to respectful visitors on the feast days around the holiday, and the museums on the hill give the cold afternoons somewhere magnificent to go. The green chile stews and the little anise cookies of the season appear on every menu, and declining them would be both rude and foolish.

The city eats seriously all year and dresses the table for December. Book the holiday dinners weeks ahead, especially anything on Canyon Road or the Plaza, take at least one long lunch of the local classics, posole and tamales and the christmas-style chile that lets you decline to choose between red and green, and keep one evening for a fireside bar with a cup of something warming while the snow, with any luck, arrives on schedule.

Book summer for December, pack for genuinely cold nights at seven thousand feet, and put nothing on the calendar for Christmas Eve except the walk. If snow falls, cancel whatever argued with it and go back outside, since Santa Fe under fresh snow and candlelight is the version people spend years trying to time.

On the last night, walk one quiet eastside lane away from the crowds, where the farolitos burn for no audience at all. They are lit because it is the season and this is the custom, which is the entire secret of Christmas in this city, and the reason it never feels like a production.