Dia de las velitas

On December 8th, in Colombia we have a celebration of Light which unfortunately I haven't celebrated in a very long time!!  My mom always told us that we were celebrating the Virgin Mary's Birthday, so to me that is what it is although I haven't found any literature on this.
When I was little, in our neighborhood, everybody would come out as soon as it got dark to decorate their front yards with candles...it was beautiful.
Honestly, for us children, it was a glorious opportunity to play with fire, which we all know they love, at least my boys do.

People would make beautiful designs like stars, christmas trees, etc..with very simple white, cheap candles from the store.
We would go around the neighborhood, visit with the neighbors and at the end of the night, we would all collect 12 candles from any front yard we wanted.  One for every month of the year.  These candles that we collected, we would light them for special favors or to give thanks to the Virgin Mary for the many blessings we receive throughout the year.

In November, we received and invitation to celebrate this very special festival at the colombian Embassy here in Mexico.  I got sooo excited and even though it was a week night, I gathered my little ducklings and went happily to the celebration.
It was different to the way I experienced as a child, but it had the same magic with the lighting of the candles and the wonderful opportunity to spend time with neighbors....not the ones next door anymore, but those who make a conscious decision to go out and share with others and to keep this traditions alive!  It was lovely and we also got to meet more people from Colombia here in Mexico!