Courtesy of Fox
New Mexico
Enchanted Winter Holidays In Northern New Mexico
Christmas scene in Santa Fe, New Mexico, snow-covered adobe building with red chile ristras, green garland, and glowing light
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New Mexico is the easy decision.
Where in New Mexico is the hard one.
The Land of Enchantment scores 10 out of 10 for art, culture, history, cuisine, nature and the outdoors, national parks and historic sites. Tack on the nation’s greatest festivals to boot.
The state puts on a show during the winter holidays as well, presenting visitors countless no-lose choices.
Albuquerque
Travelers arriving to New Mexico by air typically do so via the state’s largest city, Albuquerque. The understandable impulse is racing to rental cars and making haste to Santa Fe, Taos, Ghost Ranch, White Sands, Zuni Pueblo or whichever destination serves as your trip’s focal point. Fight this urge. Albuquerque offers worthy rewards of its own.
Stopping at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center feels compulsory when visiting New Mexico where Indigenous culture stands more forward than anywhere else in America. Just a 15-minute drive from Albuquerque’s Sunport airport, an introduction to the state’s 19 Pueblos and their history, culture, and people takes shape through artworks, exhibitions, and events.
Dances are held in IPCC’s mural-ringed Avanyu Plaza Saturdays and Sundays year-round from noon to 1 PM. Make every effort to attend one. Pueblo artists sell their handiwork daily in the courtyard, and the center’s gift shop displays authentic Pueblo jewelry, pottery, clothing and textiles, fetishes, and more. During December, the Center hosts a Pueblo Gingerbread House Contest.
The tastiest treats, however, come from the onsite Indian Pueblo Kitchen. Show up early–like, when it opens at 9:00 AM early–to guarantee a portion of homemade bread. Homemade pies last longer. Native Superfoods waffles or griddle cakes made with blue corn, quinoa, currants, piñon, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and triple berries are available all day.
Four miles from IPCC, Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm could be the best smelling hotel in America. “Hotel” only in that guests can spend the night in one of fewer than 50 casita-style accommodations spread across the 25-acre property. The privilege of doing so isn’t cheap. Think $500 a night.
Fortunately, Los Poblanos’ olfactory delights have less expensive price points, and what delights they are!
Finley split pinon kindling burns in fire pits across the property. The same is available in guest rooms along with newspaper and thick kitchen matches for fire starting. Essential oils are distilled on site, resulting in handmade, small batch lavender-peppermint hand soap and lotion. Lavendar fields to the right greet visitors arriving through an alley of monumental cottonwood trees. Sage and rosemary are used in landscaping. Garlic grows on the farm. Lemongrass, lemon verbena, and basil grows in greenhouses.
Los Poblanos began producing its own gin in 2022. A selection of craft gin cocktails from Los Poblanos’ CAMPO restaurant deliver a strong whiff of juniper.
For a spot of its caliber, reservation-only CAMPO is surprisingly “affordable.” A couple can enjoy two drinks, two appetizers–for sure the fresh bread board with selections including a green chile cheddar sourdough made in the on-site bakery with red chile Manteca butter–and two entrees with tip for about $150. Meals are cooked over a live fire. Most of what diners will enjoy is sourced either on the farm or locally. Tortillas, pasta and hominy are made on site.
Tortilla making at Los Poblanos. Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, NM
© Douglas Merriam
CAMPO offers breakfast as well, even more reasonably priced. Judge for yourself if CAMPO’s blue corn Sonora white wheat pancakes with organic maple syrup and blackberry meringue are superior to those at IPCC. CAMPO’s earthy, herbal house bacon and sausage will make you wonder if you’ve ever really had pork before.
The property’s brown sugar and sage sausage is sold in the Farm Shop next door to CAMPO. So is a spicy chorizo, the pancake mix, the soap and lotion, the gin, and fresh baked bread daily. Browsing the Farm Shop makes for an even lower entry point to Los Poblanos with wonderful gift opportunities.
Unfortunately, farm tours are only available for overnight guests and visitors enjoying afternoon tea, but others are welcome to look around. Keep an eye out for the peacocks. Enjoy a drink in the stunning library. Say “hello” to the sheep and alpaca and Mouse, the orange cat snoozing in the lobby.
Winter makes for a great time to visit with the burning pinion fires–and pinion coffee–but so does spring when the fruit trees are blooming, or late July and August when the lavender blooms. You’d expect to drive an hour into the countryside for an agritourism experience that feels this removed from urban life; Los Poblanos pulls off the trick amidst a city of nearly one million.
Taos Pueblo
Winter in New Mexico. An adobe structure at the Taos Pueblo. Parts of the Pueblo date back to 1619. (Photo by Ted Soqui/Corbis via Getty Images)
Corbis via Getty Images
“YouTube or it didn’t happen.”
Not at Taos Pueblo.
Cameras, cell phones, and electronic devices are not allowed at Taos Pueblo during ceremonial events, so while there’s no YouTube video of the Christmas Eve bonfires or Christmas Day Deer Dance, both most certainly happen. More extraordinary holiday celebrations do not exist anywhere in the nation.
Taos Pueblo in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains has been continuously inhabited for over 1,000 years. The name of those mountains–Blood of Christ–a reminder of present-day New Mexico’s Spanish occupation during the 1600 and 1700s. So too are the Christmas Eve bonfires at Taos Pueblo.
A remnant of the residents’ forced conversion to Catholicism–Taos Pueblo remains Catholic–every Christmas Eve tribal members erect more than 20 split firewood stacks throughout the Pueblo’s plaza, ranging in height from 3-feet to more than 15. At sundown, they are lit from the top down. Shortly after, a procession of riflemen and a statue of the Virgin Mary are paraded from San Geronimo de Taos church in front of more than 1,000 onlookers.
The public is welcome (just not welcome to record). Parking is free and the Pueblo doesn’t charge admission.
By nightfall, a glowing ring of fire surrounds the Pueblo’s courtyard. Guests are silhouetted against the flames, none of them competing with the electronic illumination of screens.
As a visitor, you’re there, you’re not online. The experience belongs to travelers, not influencers. Guests stare at fires, not phones. Freedom comes without the pressure of capturing every visual and then immediately sharing it.
The largest conflagrations put off an intense heat, unbearable from even 50-feet away. Cheers and embers erupt as the giant pyres collapse. Swirling smoke cyclones spin off from the strongest flames, blown in the direction of the wind. Regard the inky black sky, a combination of smoke and the absence of light pollution. There is no electricity at Taos Pueblo. Still. As the smoke wanes, the stars emerge.
Arrive by 4:00 to guarantee a portion of frybread and a parking spot up close. Late arrivals may end up walking over a mile in temperatures that can drop into the 20s. Browse the numerous shops set up in homes for heirloom treasures and souvenirs alike. Learn about Taos Pueblo’s sparkling, golden brown micaceous pottery.
Unbelievably, the following day’s activities are even more remarkable–if the Deer Dance is held.
On December 25 at Taos Pueblo, tribal members will perform either Los Matachines dance, a social dance derived from the Spanish, or the Deer Dance, a deeply spiritual ceremony all their own. Which dance is not widely known or publicized in advance. The start time for either is unspecific. These are not made-for-TV events aligned with network programming schedules. Guests should arrive around 1:00.
During the Deer Dance, what you see, you may not believe. Tribal members dressed in their finest regalia–silver, turquoise, coral, shell, feathers–shake gourd rattles in a ring enclosing the Deer Dancers and two Deer Maidens. A drum beat pulses throughout.
As snow began falling during the 2024 ceremony, not a single dancer–not the shirtless men or the sleeveless women–missed the rhythm.
Don’t quiz tribal members about what unfolds. It’s no business of outsiders. The Deer Dance will not be explained. It should not be questioned. All willing to respect it are welcome, free of charge.
For those who can’t get enough, each December 26 at Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo 45 miles south of Taos on the main road to Santa Fe, a day-long ceremonial Turtle Dance is held. Recording is likewise prohibited, and the event is similarly free and open to the public.
Arrive in late morning and watch for hours as approximately 100 male tribal members form a line throughout the Pueblo’s main dirt streets. They dance, chant, and shake gourd rattles with their torsos covered in clay. Admire their turtle shell leggings. The jingles. Their feathered, half-gourd headpieces. The fantastic yellow moccasins.
Keep an eye out for the jolly, white-and-black striped Koshare and the frightening fully masked figures lashing the legs of male tribal members.
Santa Fe
Installation view of “iNgqikithi yokuPhica/Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Art from South Africa” exhibition at International Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe.
Chadd Scott
Santa Fe’s handful of world-class art museums have a tendency of being overlooked in favor of its hundreds of world class art galleries. Big mistake. Presently, the International Folk Art Museum presents a suite of special exhibitions unsurpassed anywhere in America.
Apartheid South Africa, America’s criminal punishment system, and Ukraine post-Russian invasion don’t seem to have much in common at first glance. Given more thought, they emerge as kinfolk. The vulnerable being abused by the powerful. Human beings tormented.
Their artists are similarly bonded. Creating from what is available under conditions of extreme trauma. Creating as a life affirming shriek for their degraded dignity.
“iNgqikithi yokuPhica/Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Art from South Africa” (through November 17, 2025) shares the histories of wire as an artistic medium in South Africa, the first major presentation of this artform at any North American museum. Picking up in the 1980s as telephone service–and along with it, an abundance of discarded, often colorful, telephone wire–became commonplace in South Africa, the nation’s indigenous Zulu weavers turned to the material. From this detritus, they fashioned spectacularly vivid and intricate geometric, and then increasingly complex figurative designs, into sculptures, vessels, plates, pots, and lids.
“Between the Lines: Prison Art & Advocacy” (through September 2, 2025) exposes visitors to the cruelty of America’s runaway prison system, by far the largest of any democracy on earth, and the artwork produced inside. Artwork produced from toilet paper, chewing gum wrappers, paper scraps, matchbooks, and handkerchiefs, a fascinating subgenre of prison art known as paño arte.
“Amidst Cries from the Rubble: Art of Loss and Resilience from Ukraine” (through April 20, 2025) displays photography and artwork fashioned from shell casings, missile fragments, and ammunition boxes to demonstrate humanity’s uncrushable creative impulse.
Artists making due.
Artists proving no tyranny, no matter how evil or total, can extinguish our desire for self-expression.
Heavy stuff.
Visitors will not be faulted for following up their time at the International Folk Art Museum with a tequila or mezcal flight at the Anasazi Bar & Lounge inside the spectacular Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi hotel in Santa Fe to take the edge off. Participants sit at a dedicated tequila table where one of the bar’s spirits experts guides imbibers through the origins, history, and nuanced flavors of tequila.
No salt or lime here. This is sipping tequila. The best in the world with hundreds of bottles to choose from.
Flights for parties up to six should be scheduled 48 hours in advance and begin at $100 per person. As everyone loosens up, ask to try the Convite Coyote Mezcal Joven which puts the smell and taste of that Taos Pueblo bonfire into the bottle.
More From Forbes
Authorities in New Mexico issued an arrest warrant Friday for director and Emmy Award-winning actor Timothy Busfield to face a child sex abuse charge.
An investigator with the Albuquerque Police Department filed a criminal complaint in support of the charge, which says a child reported that Busfield touched him inappropriately. The acts allegedly occurred on the set of “The Cleaning Lady,” a TV series Busfield directed and acted in.
The child said the first incident happened when he was 7 years old and Busfield touched him three or four times. Busfield allegedly touched him five or six times on another occasion when he was 8.
The child’s mother reported to Child Protective Services that the abuse occurred between November 2022 and spring 2024, the complaint said.
Busfield’s attorney and agent did not immediately respond to email messages seeking comment late Friday.
The arrest warrant, which was signed by a judge, said the charge is for two counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor.
According to the complaint, the child, which it identifies only by his initials, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. A social worker documented him saying he has had nightmares about Busfield touching him and woken up scared.
The child was reportedly afraid to tell anyone because Busfield was the director and he feared he would get mad at him.
The investigation began in November 2024, when the investigator responded to a call from a doctor at the University of New Mexico Hospital. The child’s parents had gone there at the recommendation of a law firm, the complaint said.
“The Cleaning Lady” aired for four seasons on Fox, ending in 2025. It starred Elodie Yung as a Cambodian doctor who comes to the United States to get medical treatment for her son, witnesses a mob killing and ends up becoming a cleaner for organized crime.
The show was produced by Warner Bros., which according to the complaint conducted its own investigation into the abuse allegations but was unable to corroborate them.
Busfield is known for appearances in “The West Wing,” “Field of Dreams” and “Thirtysomething,” the latter of which won him an Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series in 1991.
He is married to actor Melissa Gilbert; there was no immediate response to an email sent to her publicist.
New Mexico
Timothy Busfield Charged With Child Sex Abuse On ‘The Cleaning Lady’s New Mexico Set; WBTV Will “Cooperate With Law Enforcement”
A 10-year-old New Mexico boy says Timothy Busfield “touched his ‘poop’ and ‘pee’ area” during production on The Cleaning Lady, an Albuquerque District Attorney–approved arrest warrant issued today says.
“In my training and experience, pedophiles often infiltrate families under a trusted role, like Timothy, who, as a producer, exploited the hectic film sets to tickle and touch SL on his penis and buttocks, masking it as play,” the warrant from Albuquerque Police Officer Marvin Brown asserts. “He would invite the family to off-set gatherings, with his wife buying Christmas gifts to foster closeness, making SL feel special and dependent—classic grooming to erode boundaries, isolate the victim, and silence suspicions by blending abuse into normalcy.”
Filled with accounts from two brothers of their alleged repeated experiences with the Thirtysomething alum, who was a director on the now shuttered Élodie Yung-led Fox drama from Warner Bros TV, the document charges Busfield with two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and child abuse. It is unclear at this point if the Emmy winner has been arrested and booked by Albuquerque Police Department.
If found guilty of the charges, Busfield could face a minimum of three years behind bars.
In fact, the 68-year-old, who was accused but never charged in two previous sexual assault allegations in 1994 and 2012, could be looking at a lot longer sentence in the Land of Enchantment.
Under New Mexico statutes, prison time in sex crimes against minors leans heavily on context and circumstances in the degrees of punishment they hand out. That time and felony class can go up substantially if the crime involves children under 13 years of age — as it allegedly does here.
Named as “SL” and “VL” in the warrant, the two 2014-born boys appeared on The Cleaning Lady over multiple seasons before being let go for having aged out of the role, I hear. However, in a Nov. 3, 2025 phone interview with Busfield in the warrant, The West Wing vet told investigating Officer Brown that he “the lead actress, Elodie Young” informed him over a year ago that “the mother of SL and VL (sic) that she wanted revenge, and I’m going to get my revenge on Tim Busfield for not bringing her kids back for the final season.”
In interviews conducted with SL and VL on Halloween last year by a “forensic child interviewer,” and observed by Officer Brown, today’s arrest warrant says that the former told them the alleged abuse by Busfield started when he was 7 years old and on The Cleaning Lady.
“SL said that Tim touched him three to four times on his ‘poop’ and ‘pee’ area over his clothing,” the 12-page arrest warrant states of what is cited as a second incident with Busfield, very similar to a previous incident. “SL said he was very afraid of Tim and was relieved when he was off set. SL said he was afraid to tell anyone because Tim was the director, and he feared Tim would get mad at him. SL did advise that Tim touched him while he was only on set filming in Albuquerque.”
SL now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, the warrant says. SL disclosing having nightmares about the director touching him and waking up scared,” the document adds.
It goes on: “VL explained that Mr. Tim started touching them for the first two years, and he did not want to say anything, because he did not want to be mean to him. Therefore, VL did not say anything. VL said Mr. Tim would start touching him with his hands about his body while they were filming in the ‘house’. VL advised that it was about his body, but did not disclose that he was touched on his buttocks or penis area. VL said he did not like being touched, but did not say anything because he did not want to get in trouble.”
The matter actually first came to the cops’ attention in late 2024 when a doctor from University of New Mexico Hospital contacted the Albuquerque Police Department in regards to a “sexual abuse investigation.”
Noting that the boys’ father had been advised to go to the hospital by a local law firm, today’s warrant details: Officer Osborn talked with both VL and SL, who did not disclose any sexual contact at this time. However, both boys advised that Timothy Busfield, whom they referred to as ‘Uncle Tim’, would tickle them on the stomach and legs. Neither boy cared for the tickling. Officer Osborn contacted Detective Michael Brown with the Crimes Against Children Unit and determined that the case did not meet their acceptance criteria at this time.”
The matter came back to the police’s attention and became a much greater priority after the boys’ mother “advised that on 09/02/2025, SL reported to his counselor that Timothy Busfield touched his penis and bottom.”
In that same telephone conversation with Busfield in the weeks before Thanksgiving last year, the NYC-based filmmaker also dropped to Officer Brown that producers Warner Bros TV had conducted its own probe into allegations against him after SAG-AFTRA received an anonymous complaint in early 2025 of an incident on The Cleaning Lady set in December 2024. After writing up a search warrant for WB (which today’s warrant seems to mistakenly say occurred on “10/03/2025”) and several correspondences with WB attorney Richard Wessling at law firm Proskauer, Officer Brown on NYE last year got his hands on the March 31, 2025 external report put together by the LA office of Solomon Law.
Specifically the report, which saw Busfield suspended during the probe, looked into claims from the hotline caller that there was evidence of Busfield “tickling and caressing the head and body of minor boys” while working on the Albuquerque-filmed Cleaning Lady. Upon his own reading of the document, Officer Brown says in Friday’s warrant that Solomon investigator “Christina McGovern was not able to talk with anyone who would support evidence that Timothy Busfield engaged in this behavior.”
Working from what now seems to be limited accusations, the WBTV investigation viewed Busfield as “exonerated,” sources tell me.
In a statement to Deadline tonight, the Channing Dungey-led WBTV said: “The health and safety of our cast and crew is always our top priority, especially the safety of minors on our productions. We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and have systems in place to promptly and thoroughly investigate, and when needed, take appropriate action. We are aware of the current charges against Mr. Busfield and have been and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement.”
As well as speaking to the boys’ mother and father (who seem to have instigated and then ceased a civil suit on this), plus some Cleaning Lady production assistants and Make-up and Hair department staffers, today’s warrant also details a brief back-and-forth between Officer Brown and the series star Yung, who was a producer too.
“On 11/5/2025, I contacted Elodie Yung to set up an interview. Elodie agreed to meet with me at the Northwest Substation on 11/7/2025,” Officer Brown notes in his fairly comprehensive affidavit that e Albuquerque Assistant DA Savannah Brandenburg-Koch signed off on today. “I did initially advise Elodie that Tim Busfield gave me her name and said that she may have information about this case. On 11/06/2025, Elodie left me a voicemail declining to speak with me and said that she does not want to be involved with the investigation and that she would not have any information that could assist in this case.”
Busfield’s agents at Innovative Artists did not respond late Friday to Deadline’s request for comment on the arrest warrant and the charges against their client.
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