Plaza events planned for New Year’s.
New Year’s Eve on the Plaza is set to begin with small fires Sunday and end with fireworks.
At 5 p.m., Santa Fe’s oldest hospice care organization will host its annual Light Up a Life fundraiser, a memorial farolito lighting on the Plaza honoring those in the community who have died.
Presbyterian Medical Services says in a news release on the event that online ordering of farolitos dedicated to deceased loves ones has ended. But members of the public can still purchase farolitos for $20 each between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. Sunday on the Plaza. The paper bags traditionally are decorated with the names of the deceased and their photos or other mementos before the Plaza is lit up with their memories.
Farolito sales will benefit Presbyterian’s nonprofit Hospice Center, which provides end-of-life care to 500 patients per year.
“All funds raised in Light Up a Life help pay for patient services that insurance or other pay sources may not cover,” Presbyterian says in the news release.
The event will feature a formal lighting ceremony, live music and speakers, including Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales and the wife of a former hospice patient.
Beginning at 9 p.m., the solemn event will give way to the city’s third annual community New Year’s Eve celebration.
The event, first held in 2015, is expected to draw thousands to the Plaza on Sunday night for entertainment by local musicians and poets ahead of the countdown at midnight, when organizers will raise a lighted tin Zia symbol, crafted by a traditional Spanish colonial artist.
With temperatures expected to dip down into the 20s, Plazagoers can gather around heaters and cozy piñon bonfires.
The Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe, which organizes the event, will provide hot chocolate and biscochitos to help keep the crowd warm as musicians Sol Fire, Alex Maryol and Fun Adixx perform on the Plaza Community Stage. Slam poets will step in to provide entertainment during music breaks, according to Tourism Santa Fe, the city’s tourism bureau.
At 11:45 p.m., Mayor Gonzales and city officials will start the countdown to “a peaceful and prosperous” 2018, Tourism Santa Fe says on its website.
And at midnight, the Kiwanis Club, which presents the annual burning of Zozobra and the city’s Fourth of July fireworks show, will launch a pyrotechnics spectacle that is expected to best the small blast of fireworks at last year’s celebration, the first city New Year’s event to include such a display.
“As the night sky overhead is lit by festive fireworks,” Tourism Santa Fe says, “the age-old songs, Auld Lang Syne and Las Mañanitas, will be sung in a spirit of unity to say ‘Bienvenidos 2018.’ ”
Contact Justin Horwath at 505-986-3017 or jhorwath@sfnewmexican.com.