December in Santa Fe

Santa Fe in December is cold, dry, and bright. Snow comes and goes on the ground in town and stays in the mountains. The adobe walls glow at sunset and the whole place smells like piñon smoke. Here is how the month goes.

Farolitos on Canyon Road, Christmas Eve

This is the one everyone comes for. On the night of December 24, Canyon Road closes to cars. Galleries and homes line their walls and rooftops with farolitos, paper bags weighted with sand and lit with a candle, and bonfires of piñon burn along the road. Thousands of people walk the half mile from Paseo de Peralta to Camino del Monte Sol, singing carols at the fires and drinking cider.

Local vocabulary: in Santa Fe, the bags are farolitos and the bonfires are luminarias. Albuquerque calls the bags luminarias. People here will correct you.

The Historic Eastside around Canyon Road does the same thing on its own streets, with fewer crowds. Acequia Madre and Garcia Street are the quiet version.

Las Posadas on the Plaza

Usually the second or third Sunday evening of December. The Palace of the Governors stages the traditional procession: Mary and Joseph walk the Plaza looking for shelter, the devil heckles from the rooftops, the crowd sings, and everyone ends up inside the Palace courtyard for biscochitos and hot chocolate. It is free and it is short. Bring gloves.

Glow at the Botanical Garden

The Santa Fe Botanical Garden on Museum Hill lights the whole garden for weekend evenings through December. Good with children, and the view of the city lights from up there is the bonus.

Winter Indian Market and Winter Spanish Market

SWAIA’s Winter Indian Market, the smaller sibling of the August market, runs at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center on the weekend after Thanksgiving, so it opens the season rather than sitting inside it. The Winter Spanish Market follows on the first weekend of December in the same building. If you want to buy a piece of jewelry, a pot, or a retablo directly from the artist, these are the weekends.

Music

The Santa Fe Symphony performs Handel’s Messiah at the Lensic early in the month. The Lensic also hosts a Nutcracker and a rotating set of holiday concerts, and the Loretto Chapel runs a series of candlelit Baroque concerts in the week before Christmas.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the pueblos

Several of the northern pueblos hold dances on December 24 and 25, including Taos Pueblo’s Christmas Eve procession and bonfires. Visitors are welcome at most, with rules: no photographs unless the pueblo says so, no applause, and check each pueblo’s website before you go, because dates and access change.

Skiing

Ski Santa Fe is 16 miles from the Plaza up Hyde Park Road, with a base at 10,350 feet. It usually opens around Thanksgiving, and by late December the upper mountain is reliable. People who live on the Northside can be on the lift in 30 minutes. On the way back down, Ten Thousand Waves has outdoor hot tubs in the trees.

Food

Tamales, posole, and biscochitos are the season. Most restaurants add posole to the menu, and the Farmers’ Market in the Railyard sells tamales by the dozen on Saturdays through the month.

If you own a home here, or are about to

December is when you learn whether a house is well built. Flat roofs need their canales clear before snow. Radiant floors are wonderful and slow to warm up. Kiva fireplaces burn piñon, which you buy by the cord in the fall. We wrote a short checklist on getting a Santa Fe home ready for winter.