ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Although the Country Club neighborhood’s Christmas Eve Luminaria Tour is canceled this year, that doesn’t mean the tradition is being abandoned. With help from the Boy Scouts from Troop 444, residents in the neighborhood are still able to put out luminarias this year.
For more than 30 years they’ve sold luminarias to people in the area and every year it’s helped to keep their troops alive. “The folks in the Country Club, we thought maybe nobody’s going to order, turns out we got just about 90 percent of the orders we had last year,” said Matt Hunter, the luminaria parent coordinator with Troop 444. “Last year we sold about 12,000, this year 10,000.”
They’ll start setting them up on Christmas Eve morning and lighting them later in the day. They will clean them up on Christmas morning. They don’t know if people will come out to enjoy the luminarias but they’re happy they could be a part of the tradition.
Hunter said they’ve raised about $9,000. He said they put the luminarias together in small groups, with masks and social distancing in well-ventilated areas.
