Eight Nights of Light on the High Desert: A Taos Family's Hanukkah

On a December evening in Taos, New Mexico, the temperature drops below freezing and the sky turns the deep indigo that only high altitude can produce. Inside a small adobe house off a winding road, Rachel and Daniel Greenberg light the first candle of their menorah, and their two children press their noses to the window. By the time the wax begins to pool, hundreds of small paper bags have already been arranged along the lane, each one holding a single candle. The Greenbergs have spent a full afternoon preparing a luminaria walk, a New Mexican tradition usually reserved for Christmas Eve, and folded it gently into their celebration of Hanukkah.

The Festival of Lights in Taos does not look the way it does in many other Jewish communities. There are no crowded synagogue halls, no bustling charity events in a major city. Instead, the holiday stretches across an expanse of juniper and sage, framed by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. For the Greenbergs, who moved to northern New Mexico a decade ago from the East Coast, this blending of regional custom and Jewish ritual has become the defining rhythm of their year. Their neighbours, some of whom have walked this same path for decades to see the farolitos glow along the river, now know to expect a menorah at the end of the lane as well.

What surprises many visitors is how naturally the two traditions meet. Luminarias, the paper-lined lanterns that have marked Christmas Eve in New Mexico for generations, are simply small bonfires of intention. The Greenbergs understand them that way. When the first candle is lit, the light does not belong to one faith or one family. It belongs to anyone willing to walk the cold half mile from the main road to their door.

A Neighbourhood Steeped in Farolitos

Taos takes its winter lights seriously. Every Christmas Eve, locals and tourists alike bundle up and stroll through the historic district, where adobe walls are lined with glowing bags of sand and votive candles. The tradition has roots in the area's Hispanic and Indigenous communities, and it predates the arrival of electricity by centuries. For most of the town, the luminaria walk is a quiet, almost meditative affair, an excuse to greet neighbours under a cold sky and sip something warm from a thermos.

Rachel learned about the custom from her next-door neighbour, Elena, who had been setting out farolitos since before Rachel arrived. Elena showed her how to fold the paper bags, how to weight them with sand, and how to place a single tea light inside without it tipping in the wind. The first winter, Rachel watched the lanterns glow outside her own home and felt a familiar pull. She wanted her children to feel that same sense of anticipation, but she wanted it tied to their own story.

That year, she set out her own row of luminarias, and at the end of the path she placed a large outdoor menorah her husband had welded from steel pipe. The next morning, Elena knocked on the door with a tin of biscochitos. She had walked the lane in the snow, seen the candles burning, and understood immediately what the family had done. From that point on, the Greenbergs made it a tradition.

A Family Between Two Worlds

The Greenbergs are not the first Jewish family to make a home in Taos, but they are part of a small and growing community. The region has attracted artists, retirees, and remote workers over the past two decades, drawn by the light, the cost of living, and the proximity to outdoor life. Some have arrived through connections in the countercultural world of the 1960s and 1970s, when Taos became a gathering place for those seeking an alternative life. Others, like Daniel, came for a job at the university and stayed for the quiet.

Their home sits on an acre of land with a view of the mountain ridge that runs behind the town. Rachel teaches at the local elementary school. Their son is in middle school and already taller than his mother. Their daughter is in primary school and has the kind of stubborn confidence that comes from growing up around artists and ranchers. Both children are the only Jewish kids in their classes, which has shaped the family's sense of responsibility. They want their kids to know what they believe and why, but they also want them to know how to explain it to anyone who asks.

Daniel handles the technical side of the luminaria walk. He has rigged the path with low-voltage LED backup lights in case a candle goes out, and he tests every bag for wind resistance. Rachel handles the food. She makes sufganiyot in the morning, fried until they puff into soft golden pillows, and latkes in the evening, crispy and served with applesauce from the orchard in the neighbouring valley. The family has a running debate about whether the latkes or the doughnuts are the better symbol of the oil miracle, and the children have learned to argue both sides with conviction.

A Southern Hemisphere Perspective

For friends who visit from the Southern Hemisphere, the cold and the candle wax seem almost paradoxical. Hanukkah in Australia falls during the long days of December and January, when families gather on back verandahs or under jacaranda trees while the sun lingers past nine in the evening. A friend in Melbourne once described lighting her menorah with the sliding door open, wearing a sundress, while the kids ran through sprinklers in the yard. The Greenberg children find this hilarious and slightly scandalous.

The contrast has become part of the conversation around their table. Rachel's cousin in Sydney sends photos each year of the St Kilda Shule's giant outdoor chanukiah, set up near the sea where gulls wheel above the candles. The Greenberg kids see the photos and ask why they cannot do the same. Rachel explains that the miracle of Hanukkah is not tied to latitude or climate. It is the same handful of oil, the same stubborn faith, the same small flame. Their cousin's chanukiah faces the Pacific. Their own faces the Sangre de Cristos.

This exchange has turned into a small family tradition of its own. Each year, the Greenbergs video chat with relatives in Melbourne and Sydney on the first night, comparing notes on weather, food, and how the candles behave in different kinds of wind. The Australian relatives send photos of their own version of the holiday, including the massive chanukiah in front of the Sydney Opera House during certain civic celebrations. The Greenbergs send back shots of their lane glowing in the snow.

The Night of the Walk

The luminaria walk happens on the second night of Hanukkah. By then the family has had time to recover from the first night's cooking and the children's impatience has settled into a calmer anticipation. Friends arrive from town, some Jewish and some not, carrying thermoses and blankets. The walk begins at dusk, when the mountains have disappeared into the blue of evening and the first stars appear above the peak.

The path runs from the main road, past a row of bare cottonwoods, and up to the Greenberg property. Along the way, guests stop at each cluster of bags, chatting with neighbours who have also come out to walk. The temperature usually hovers around ten degrees Fahrenheit, and breath fogs in the lantern light. Someone always brings a flask of something warm, and someone else always forgets gloves. The Greenbergs have learned to keep a stack of spare mittens by the door.

At the end of the walk, the menorah stands waiting. Daniel lights it while the children hold up their own small candles, passed down from Rachel's grandmother. A few words are said in Hebrew, the blessing over the lights, and the flames catch against the snow. People stand quietly for a moment. Then someone kicks off the latke eating with a shout, and the children run inside to grab the sufganiyot before they cool.

What the Light Carries Forward

The Greenbergs know their children will not live in Taos forever. The son has already mentioned universities back east. The daughter talks about visiting her cousin in Melbourne, who she admires enormously. Rachel and Daniel do not worry about this. The point of the luminaria walk was never to root the children in one place. It was to give them a memory they could carry, a specific image of light in a cold landscape, tied to a story of survival and stubbornness.

Each year, the family adds a small element. One year it was a new set of steel cups for the menorah, forged by a friend who works with metal. Another year it was a wooden dreidel carved by an Indigenous artist at the local market. The collection grows, and so does the sense that the holiday is not a museum piece but a living practice. Jewish life in the high desert has its own texture, and the Greenbergs are happy to keep weaving it.

For readers in other parts of the world, the takeaway is simple and useful. Hanukkah is, at its heart, a festival of public light. It asks to be seen. A family in New Mexico has found a way to make it visible by borrowing a beloved local custom and adapting it with care. Anyone can do something similar. A single window, a row of candles on a porch, a lantern in a front garden. The miracle is older than any one tradition, and it travels well across deserts, oceans, and time zones.