Luminaria!

Ever since I spoke at a conference in Sante Fe, New Mexico in December many years ago, I have loved luminarias. The rooftops in most of the old town have luminaria all along them. Originally, they were paper bags with sand and a votive candle in the bottom. Nowadays, many of them are plastic and electrified. Luminaria outline walks and roofs at Christmas time. The Botanical Gardens in Phoenix have a wonderful holiday display with all of their gardens lit up and outlined with luminaria.

There was an RV here at Eagle View last year that had a line of luminaria outlining their coach. I asked them where they had gotten them, but they said they had acquired them many years ago -- and didn't really remember where...  A couple of weeks ago when we were in Fountain Hills, I checked with the Ace Hardware store to see if they might have any as they were advertising Christmas lights. They didn't, but the lady said I should check online, as she was certain she had seen them there.

And she was right! I ended up ordered two sets of ten bags. When they arrived, the brochure inside spoke of the weights they also sold that fit in the bottom of the bags and could be filled with water or sand. I liked the sound of that, so ordered a set. The original luminaria came in two days, but the weights didn't get here for over a week. They finally came today. Forry filled the weights with water and we were finally able to put the bags together and set them out.

Of course, the first thing I did when I was untangling the line of lights to insert them, was to drop the string on the pavement and break one of the bulbs! Naturally, no spares came with the set... They five watt screw-in bulbs, so we should be able to get replacements. There's about three feet of wire between the lamps.

With the twenty bags, we were able to light all the way down the side of Auntie Violet and a bit of the way around the corner -

I really like the way it looks!