Christmastime in New Mexico is like no other

I’m writing this from a New York coffee shop before my comedy show, and fresh from looking at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. I was feeling like Kevin in “Home Alone 2” taking in all the New York holiday spirit. Then I started to think just how special Christmas in the Land of Enchantment is.

Where else can you get tamales, posole and red chile alongside every family meal? Where Santa doesn’t get chocolate chip cookies, but homemade biscochitos. We don’t use Tupperware, reusing Cool Whip tubs for leftovers and chile, confusing family members as they go through a Rolodex of containers in the fridge before finding what they are actually looking for ­— or, like myself, unknowingly putting chile on their apple pie while midnight snacking in the dark like Santa.

We line the path to our doorways with luminarias or farolitos, depending on where you grew up in New Mexico. Born in Santa Fe and spending Christmas there, my grandfather would call them farolitos. But growing up and living in Albuquerque, most people call them luminarias. A New Mexico debate spanning centuries, and maybe even more divisive than “Red or Green?”

I remember being a kid and having to fill bag after bag full of sand, helping grandpa light all the candles on Christmas Eve before family got to the house. The only state where our Christmas lights require manual labor to get started. But once they are all lit and glowing, I’m not sure if there is a sight that will give you more of a nostalgic feeling of holidays in New Mexico.

Speaking of Christmas Eve, I almost feel like that is the real day we celebrate Christmas festivities in New Mexico. Growing up, my family always did everything on Christmas Eve, from family dinners and opening presents, even attending midnight Mass. One time I stayed up as a kid, thinking that I would stay awake long enough to see Santa deliver gifts to our house. I remember asking how Santa would get in our apartment because we did not have a fireplace. Without hesitation, my mother replied that she gave him the spare key, that way he could check on us if we were naughty. Parents always seem to have a flabbergasting answer ready to go. Christmas Day was a much calmer occasion of eating leftovers and playing with all the gifts opened the night before.

I remember Grandma making you dress up as Joseph for Las Posadas at church, embarrassing you in front of your crush, who had to dress up as Mary. Having to sing songs and being paraded around, while asking if we can seek shelter. I don’t recall the memory being as cute as my grandmother remembers it. Still bringing it up each time we would see the girl who played Mary over the years. Having to relive the embarrassment each time.

Walking away from that giant Christmas tree in Manhattan, I realized that the equivalent that might even mean more to us Burqueños is the lighting of the tree in Old Town Plaza. Or up north, taking a walk among the farolitos on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. Or my favorite as a kid, looking at the ice sculptures they used to have each year in the Plaza. How special it is to have traditions passed down through generations, making tamales and biscochitos in the kitchen together. The only place where the Christmas wreaths have chiles in them, and definitely the only place in the world you can get a slice of piñon pie.