A Southwestern Christmas

Having grown up in the southwest, Christmas on the East coast never feels completely right. See, the people on the East coast don’t understand the beauty and joy of luminarios. There are a few intrepid souls who try them, but at the end of the day, they just don’t work here quite like they do in the southwest.

What is a luminario, you ask? In its truest form, it’s a paper bag (lunch sized) with sand in the bottom and a candle nestled in the sand. When lit, it’s a simple thing of beauty.

Of course, there are downfalls related to bags and fire, particularly if you throw in some wind. And so, to try and ease my mom’s longing for luminarios (she misses them maybe even more than I do), my sister and I came up with the following solution. They’re not 100% perfect, but they’re better than nothing.

You start with some mason jars, spray paint, and solar path lights.

Next up, you take your jars and mask off a simple design. We did a cross on each side, but I think, if I had it to do over again, I’d only do two sides, not all four, because they almost let too much light through instead of the subtle glow. Then you paint them.

While the paint is drying, you take the solar lights from the stakes (did you see we used the stake part to hold them while we painted them? Cause we had no plans to use the rest of the light that we stole the solar lights from.) and you put the lights into little cling wrap pouches to keep them water proof.

Finally, you peel off the tape, set the light pouch on the mouth of the jar, screw the lid on (after removing the middle part of the jar lid!), and trim the cling wrap so it’s not dribbling all over the edge. Then, voila! You have a set of pseudo-luminarios ready to enhance your Christmas decorations.