From dusk until about 10, area streets are closed to traffic, and residents and visitors jam Canyon Road, Acequia Madre, Garcia, Delgado, Calle Corvo and cul de sac lanes, strolling, chatting, sipping coffee and hot cider, and taking in the ambience created by this tradition that goes back to at least the 1870s. Along the way you find people singing Christmas carols around bonfires, called luminarias in Santa Fe.

The Farolito Walk is a festive prelude to the holiday for everyone.

Because of its blend of Anglo, Hispanic and Indian cultures, Santa Fe's Christmas season takes on an unusual air. Some pueblos conduct centuries-old dances that coincide with Christmas. At Tesuque pueblo, 12 miles north of Santa Fe, scores of dancers wearing white blousey shirts, turquoise and coral necklaces, black skirts and white leggings celebrate the winter solstice with the Rainbow Dance, moving to the resonant throbs on a single drum. Several pueblos perform Matachines, an allegorical dance with Spanish and Indian themes, the music provided not by drums but violins and guitar. These dances are open to the public.

Alfred Borcover, former Travel editor of the Chicago Tribune, has spent the past three Christmases in Santa Fe.

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Spain: A Rhythm of Life and History

By Stephen Franklin

Cool, clear morning early one Christmas day in Toledo, Spain. Hardly a sound. Hardly a soul on the narrow, winding alleyways of the ancient hilltop city, a living jewel box of history.

Quiet hangs ever so gently in the crisp air, soon to melt away among crowds rushing to family meals, to church services, to fiestas, to someplace joyful.

Across the landscape in the next few days as traditional holiday celebrations rush by and as streets fill up with shoppers and others, there is a noticeable rhythm of life uplifted.

From Christmas Eve (Nochebuena) to Innocents Day (Los Inocentes) to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and then on to Three Kings Days (Los Reyes Magos), the rhythm is inescapable across Spain. We feel its pull as we move south through Andalusia, across long, lovely plains on the road to Cordoba, and westward to Seville, where the nights take on a carnival-like glow, and through hills to Ronda and then up to Granada.

Here is where we want to be on New Year's Eve, standing in a large square below the Alhambra, the 13th century mirage-like beauty left behind by Spain's one-time Arab conquerors. Come midnight, the crowd roars with excitement and people uncork bottles of cava, the Spanish champagne, and douse each other.

A shattering roar and the taste of the cava. Unforgettable.