Luminarias again will light up Christmas Eve

A Flathead Valley tradition gets under way Christmas Eve with the lighting of the Rose Crossing luminarias.

About 1,700 luminarias - votive candles in sand-filled bags - will line the two-mile-long stretch of Rose Crossing between Whitefish Stage Road and U.S. 2.

The lighting begins at 3:30 p.m. and all the luminarias should be lit by 5:30 p.m.

Rose Crossing neighbors have kept the tradition going for more than 13 years. This year, friends and neighbors gathered Sunday evening to fill the bags with sand donated by McElroy & Wilken Inc.

Neighbors chip in money for the bags and candles.

"It takes a couple of hours to make them," said Kim Lister, whose family has helped coordinate the project for several years. "We have kids [in the neighborhood] who have grown up doing this who are now teens and in college. It goes pretty quickly with them there."

Motorists are urged to drive slowly and cautiously; the display draws hundreds of spectators each year.