Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Fe's Christmas "Farolitos" Offer an Epiphany

TGIF & TGISaturday, Sunday, Monday, etc. Part 2

Dec 27, 2024

Well, continuing my tale from my previous Post of the same name.

It’s Christmas time. Here in Santa Fe and… everywhere else in the world that has been both blessed and cursed by the birth of Jesus. First, blessed by the holy scribes who made a sanctified religion out of one man dying on a cross for all his mates, and second, cursed by all the modern-day capitalists and profiteers who have made such a God-forsaken, voracious industry out of “The Holidays”.

Me? I’m just walking around downtown. The golden-lit “City of Enchantment”. Lovely, early winter, Santa Fe.

By happenstance, it’s a Friday, but as the subtitle of this post suggests, it could just as well be a Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. At least in my world, especially now that I’m retired and I don’t have to wait for the generosity of Friday evening, Saturday, or Sunday. Life’s serendipity and opportunities are always there - for the taking.

My wife, Surya, has a rare afternoon-night shift off from the hotel where she works like a fiend, and we decide to head for Madrid to see the annual Christmas Parade (“Ma’drid”, accent on the first syllable). It’s just 33 minutes south of Santa Fe along Highway 25, “The Turquoise Trail”. We went last year with our son, Exsel.

But this year, it’s Surya, me, and Opung who hop into the car.

Right, you remember “Opung”, Surya’s Mom from Sumatra, Indonesia, who doesn’t speak a word of English, who has been staying with us since September.

How’s she doing? you ask.

Well…not bad, if you disregard that she’s “dingin” (cold) 24/7, even though we bought her an electric blanket and an electric vest to keep her “panas” (toasty warm) around the clock. But other than seeing snow for the first time in her life, and singing out-loud, along with tribal Batak music on YouTube all day long, I think Opung may be quite looking forward to returning to equatorial Indonesia where the temperature almost never falls below… 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

Anyway, we want to show Opung the yak-led Madrid Christmas parade, replete with live buffalos, burros, and old hippies dressed in Christmas gear and cheer.

We head south out of Santa Fe along The Turquoise Trail, and in half an hour, we’ve covered the first 32 scenic miles of The Trail, but then…

…we’re stopped - dead - about a mile before Madrid. It’s after 4 p.m., the parade has already started, so apparently we aren’t going to be moving anytime sooooon.

We huff and puff, but we can neither blow the house down… nor move more than 3 feet forward in the next half hour. So we…

…turn around… and reverse our drive back to Santa Fe.

Even though Surya and I are entirely disappointed (maybe not Opung because she doesn’t know what she’s missed), there will be no yak-led Christmas parade this year.

Sulk. Complain. Retreat, tails between our legs.

Then…

…it hits me.

Why not go… somewhere else?
Hell! Behind every closed door is… an open window.
A chance to turn utter defeat into… some kind of victory. Or at least, into something - different.
Rather than give up, good Bataks (name of Surya’s and Opung’s Sumatran tribe), let’s proceed…
What are you talking about? says my wife, questioning my rare optimism.
I have exactly what we need, I say.
And what’s that? she counters.
My iPhone! (the very thing I once claimed I would never own)

I click on “Santa Fe Botanical Gardens”.

Closed after 4 pm.

I try “Christmas markets in Santa Fe”.

We’re a week early.

Then… the window opens wider…

Bishop’s Lodge! We can see that fabulous wooden Christmas tree and all the “farolito” lights! Let’s go there!

Farolito lights? You may, or may not have, ever seen or heard of them. They’re unique to the Santa Fe Christmas tradition and were originally paper lanterns used by Hispanic people in Christmas processions. Now, more often than not, they’re all connected by cables and wires, and the paper is more polyurethaned, weatherproof plastic. You can see them above in front of Bishop’s Lodge, along with their unique wooden Christmas tree, all along the adobe walls in the photo above. Something like… “All Along the Watchtower”.

Bishop’s Lodge? You’ve probably never heard of that either, unless you’re a local Santa Fean, or you know Willa Cather’s famous novel, “Death Comes for the Archbishop”, one of the best on the “old frontier”, in which her stiff-necked and regal fictional archbishop, “Jean-Marie Latour”, is closely based upon the historical, French-born, Roman Catholic high priest, Jean-Baptiste Lamy (1814-1888).

Lamy first arrived in Santa Fe in 1851, joining a long line of French adventurers and clergy who explored, traded, and eventually settled in New Mexico ever since the 16th century. Appointed by Rome, Lamy, being French, had a hard time taming and having the already well-established Hispanic Catholic congregations come around to his French Catholic point of view. But he largely succeeded and he also had the now world-famous St. Francis Cathedral built over many years (1869-86), where it now sits, close to Santa Fe’s main Plaza, drawing thousands of visitors year-round. (I can also report that they have a beautiful Christmas Eve midnight “liturgy” that all three of us attended, just a couple of nights ago.)

In 1853, Bishop Lamy purchased the property on which the current “Bishop’s Lodge” lies from a farming and orchard-keeping family, the Romeros. There, on a small hill overlooking Tusuque Creek, not far from the current Santa Fe Opera, Lamy built himself a very modest house with two small bedrooms, separated by a hallway leading to a chapel. He used his home, set back as it was, away from all his challenging diocese responsibilities, as a personal retreat, and to receive guests, and he called it “Villa Pintoresca”.

After the Bishop’s death and several more sales of the property, as well as a good deal of new construction and expansion, the current hotel chain owners bought the property in January 1998, and they

are dedicated to preserving the heritage and beauty of Lamy’s “ranchito” and the traditions of hospitality that he initiated so long ago.

Today Bishop’s Lodge is a high-end hotel with a swimming pool, one hundred rooms and suites, a restaurant, bar, and a playground for those who can afford it… while it also maintains Lamy’s original simple wooden Chapel for curious guests and visitors.

Surya and I have seen the Archbishop’s original chapel several times, during one of our well-known Happy Hour visits around town. The Lodge’s grounds are immaculately kept, having allowed us to play croquet and bean bag toss, and the atmosphere is rustic and authentic, with high viga wood beams and beautiful art all over the walls.

But today we’ve brought Opung, from our fortuitously re-directed journey to Madrid (accent on the first syl’-la-ble), and as I park the car down below in the lot, Surya and her Mom slowly climb the long path and granite steps up to the restaurant at the top.

It’s very hard to tell exactly what Opung sees and feels, having suffered a “pre-stroke” about five years ago, as a result, both her short-term memory and her motor functions have been noticeably compromised. It’s equally hard to get a genuine and happy smile from her, but after several attempts, Surya seems to have mostly succeeded.

Or maybe… it was just the good food, the warm fire, and the Christmas tree.

The lodge is full tonight, as it is probably the entire holiday season. We sit right in front of the Christmas tree and order a few drinks and appetizers. The food is an afterthought, only because we’re were feeling so warm and welcome - even Christmas-sweatered Opung.

Eventually though, Opung is getting tired, so I volunteer to walk back down the hill to get the car and pick them both up right in front of the horseshoe main entrance.

I walk outside into the cold winter air. The sky is full of stars that shine especially brightly here, outside the city. The view from the top of the hill, looking down upon the pool and the grounds is spectacular, in my opinion, the best in Santa Fe.

And once again, it hits me:

Life, a funny thang.

That’s what bruising, ex-heavyweight boxing champ, Sonny Liston, said in one of his pre-fight interviews, after which he lost his “belt” to brash newcomer, Cassius Clay, in 1964, soon after which Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

But yeah, life is a “funny thang”, even when it comes from the mouth of uneducated, ex-convict and gangster-thug, Mr. Liston.

And so being, it just strikes me here, under the starlit New Mexican sky, at the top of Bishop’s Lodge, overlooking the outstretched “Land of Enchantment”, a few weeks after Thanksgiving, and just a few days before Christmas, that

Ho! Ho! Ho! I have a lot to be thankful for.

First of all, I’m still alive, having survived lymphatic cancer, spine surgery, mumps, measles, and a whole kit and kaboodle of other misdemeanors and maladies.

Secondly, that although I may not have become President of the United States, which both my parents and my early education prepared me for, I have been pretty damn lucky to become a first-time husband at age 54, a first-time father at age 69, and a first-time homeowner at age 75.

Thirdly, I’m lucky to be “comfortably” retired, never having been very wise or caring about money. Having much more lived “following my bliss”, as Mr. Campbell would say. Having always earned just enough to get by, being a modern dancer, clown, storyteller, and university theater professor. And now, having my retirement days in Santa Fe sprawled out in front of me like the Lazy T ranch and casita, where my toughest decisions are whether to play pickleball on any given day, or… fill out the FAFSA federal scholarship form for our son, Exsel’s, college applications.

Why then, I ask myself so stubbornly and neurotically, am I still so aggressive, defensive, and worrisome?

Ahhh… that…

I’ll leave to another post!

But along with these three epiphanies above, it also strikes me, as I walk down the farolito-lit hill, that life is a… fickle motherfucker. Not only, as Buddhists say, is it full of “suffering”, but it’s also full of impermanence and change.

Or as another rotund uneducated black man once sang.

One never knows, do one? - Mr. Fats Waller

And so… on this diamond-starred night, it just seems to me,

That whenever one “fails”, that whatever one “loses” something, no matter how cherished or dear: a fortune, a career, a loved one, a mother, father, husband, wife, even a child, that such failure or loss is just not a good enough reason to give up and stop living.

Because, as I already said, life is always there - “for the taking”… for the living.

And I don’t mean for those “still alive”. I mean that - life is always a constant, swirling ocean of activity and opportunity. That even beyond “loss” and self-perceived “failure”, there is so much… more life… ahead. If only, one would look forward instead of back.

What I mean is - that until one takes their very last breath, I like to believe that a human being, more than any other species, is “at choice”. Even perhaps, in such depraved and hostile conditions as being imprisoned in a concentration camp, or even living day to day with a fatal disease. It comes down to: how do I see myself in a specific circumstance and condition, and what shall I do about it? What’s my next step? My next option and choice?

This gives even me, old curmudgeon Trules, some hope and optimism. Can’t make it to Madrid (accent on the first syl-la’ble)? Go to Bishiop’s Lodge. Lose the love, the support, of your life? Find another. Be condemned to death, “find meaning” like Victor Frankl did while condemned to a Nazi concentration camp.

Anyway, that’s what Santa Trules hopes for this Friday…. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

Look forward, not back, except perhaps in appreciation and with gratitude.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and will all have a very Happy, Healthy, and Creative New Year… or whatever else, and however else, you may celebrate and appreciate your lives.

Thanks for being a reader and/or a subscriber, of this Substack Newsletter.

Epiphanatically (not really a word, I know),

Trules

Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Fe's Christmas "Farolitos" Offer an Epiphany

TGIF & TGISaturday, Sunday, Monday, etc. Part 2

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