3 communities converging to ignite thousands of luminarias Sunday
JACKSON TWP — One resident’s plan to bring together thousands of luminarias for 2020’s COVID Christmas proved so memorable that neighboring communities have asked to join in this year.
Amanda Greenlund, who lives in Jackson Crossing, helps lead the construction of about 4,500 luminarias throughout the communities of Walnut Ridge, Brookview Farms and Jackson Crossing, all of which have grown around Tollgate Road. The collaboration, which Greenlund estimates will include 237 different households, will culminate in a display that makes the night glow at 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18.
“I had originally organized it just for our cul-de-sac two years ago, just to see if people would want to do it,” Greenlund said. “We are all friends up here, so we had a pretty good turnout. And then, obviously, it was a COVID year, so everybody was kind of at home. And it was just a nice way to get out in the neighborhood a little bit.”
Then this year someone from Brookview Farms asked if Greenlund wished to organize the event again, telling her that everyone wished to do it again. Not long after this, Greenlund learned that both Brookview Farms and Walnut Ridge had committed to participating in the display, with residents Leslie Slepak of Brookview Farms and Stacy Adams of Walnut Ridge organizing.
Greenlund said the idea came to her after she learned about a similar tradition in her husband’s hometown, which lies further north. There, she said, residents would plant luminarias along a whole circle of homes, igniting these every Sunday before Christmas.
These kinds of traditions are common in well-established communities where people have lived for a long time, but communities such as Jackson Crossing are relatively new, Greenlund said.
“We’ve only — give or take — anybody who’s been here, max, probably four or five years, so we’re relatively new in our development,” she said. “And so it’s just the latest start of that tradition, and hopefully we keep doing it for sure.”
Greenlund and her husband buy all the supplies for Jackson Crossing. These consist of white paper bags and votive candles, she said. Then everyone pays them back at a rate of $7 in exchange for 25 bags and 25 candles, she said.
“I like everything to match, so that’s one of the reasons why I decided that I would go ahead and purchase everything, and then whoever wants to contribute, contributes,” Greenlund said.
Some households buy more supplies, others buy less, but everyone’s responsible for making the luminarias whenever they can, Greenlund said. Sometimes households who’d like to participate can’t cover these costs, so the Greenlunds cover them instead.
“We don’t mind doing that at all,” she said.
People who want to make luminarias can just roll down the top of the bag, place sand or kitty litter in the bottom of the bag to weigh it down and then nestle the votives in the sand, Greenlund said. She added that this process makes them very easy to make. It’s especially fun to craft these items with children.
“It snowed two years ago,” she said, referring again to when the tradition first began. “It was fun to kind of see everybody bundled up. And now I’m even making it a little bit of a tradition here for some of our friends and neighbors to come over that night, so it’s just a fun, festive way to kick off the holiday.”
Resident Brian Galus, who participates in the display and also lives in Jackson Crossing, said he hopes the project will expand to all six communities that cluster around Tollgate Road in Jackson Township. That cluster of communities would include the Rock Lake community, he said.
“That’d be kind of neat,” he said. “It’d become an annual tradition.”
Galus asks anyone driving through the display to keep right and turn right at all intersections. He also urges drivers to drive slowly, since many children live in these communities.
