Creating Traditional Paper Lanterns for the Holidays
Brighten the night! Here’s how to make luminarias in three steps. Luminarias are twinkling paper lanterns that add a festive touch for Halloween, Christmas, or a party—especially during the darker nights of late autumn and winter.
What Are Luminarias?
Traditionally, the Spanish used luminarias around Christmastime; they lit the way for the Christ child, welcoming Him to the world. Hundreds of years ago, luminarias were small bonfires of crisscrossed piñon branches built in 3-foot-high squares. After the Spanish explorers discovered the Chinese paper lanterns, the paper bag approach was adopted.
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Today, luminarias are still popular in New Mexico and the Southwest—and we’re seeing them pop up elsewhere, too! They have a certain glowing magical quality about them, don’t you think?
Simple Luminarias in 3 Steps
Make the most simple, traditional luminarias with brown or white paper lunch bags.
- Fold each bag at the top, then fill each with a couple of cups of sand.
- Add a votive candle! For safety, many folks now use a flameless LED votive candle or solar-powered light.
- Place the bags on steady ground along pathways.
If you use real candles, be extra vigilant, especially if there isn’t snow on the ground.
Reusable Luminarias
- Collect large metal juice cans.
- Punch holes in the sides of the cans using a nail or hole puncher.
- If you’re handy, you can punch out designs such as stars.
- Next, paint the cans with flat black paint. (Spray paint makes this easy, but use cautiously around small children.)
- After the paint dries, pour 2 inches of sand into the bottom of each can. Settle a votive candle into the sand and light it.
The Magic of Candles
Here are other ways to bring candlelight into your home.
- Float tea lights in shallow bowls of water, along with some flower petals.
- Use small terra-cotta pots as candle holders. Paint them with craft or fabric paint and add a votive candle or tea light. (If you have used pot, consider cleaning them first.)
- To make any candle a scented candle, add a drop of essential oil to the melting wax just next to the wick. Consider cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh, pine, or bay for traditional holiday fragrances.
What about you? Do you use candles to illuminate the holiday season?
Catherine Boeckmann
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There is an ERROR in this article.
As stated in the article, "luminarias were small bonfires of crisscrossed piñon branches which were built in three-foot high squares". This is still a tradition in the Southwest/New Mexico to light "the way for the Christ child".
However, the article goes on to explain how to "Make the most simple, traditional luminarias with brown or white paper lunch bags." This is the ERROR because the name of these "brown or white paper lunch bags" is actually “farolito”...whereas “luminaria” are the small stacks of firewood.
“The FAROLITOS are the candles inside of a bag,” said Damian Wilson, Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of New Mexico. “But a luminaria is a stack of wood where you stack it, two by two to create sort of a tower…”
By definition, the root word, Farol is a lantern, therefore a 'small lantern' would be a farolito. So why call a little lantern a bonfire? 😏
“LUMINARIAS, we always save the very special firewood for luminarias,” said Enrique Lamadrid, an American historian in the US state of New Mexico, known for his studies of Chicano, Mexican American, and Hispano culture. He is Professor Emeritus for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at University of New Mexico... “It’s stacked, a little stack in squares, it’s laid up on squares and the average height can be three, three and a half feet.”
Did he just say firewood squares stacked three feet high? That’s right, officially in the Spanish language, a LUMINARIA is actually a bonfire. A FAROLITO is a small lantern (or bag of sand with a candle).
These are the traditions which tie in with Christmas celebrations in the northern part of the state.
Consider using bird seed instead of sand for home luminaries. Has worked very well for my daughter who participates in her neighborhood's luminarias in Westchester County, NY. The birds appreciate this Christmas Eve gift. Obviously, if you are planning a very large display, using birdseed could be expensive and impractical. Happy Holidays.
Or just use an old bait can.The holes are already there
in a beautiful pattern and they are so nostalgic.
