The Christmas Eve bonfire tradition that almost wasn't

GARYVILLE, La. — Just after sunrise, Josh Weidert is awake to start collecting wood. The morning is crisp. Each year since he was a kid, his family has built a massive bonfire atop the Mississippi River levee near his home — a local tradition that draws thousands of holidaygoers from across the world, and one he loves.

According to legend, the fires are built to light the way for "Papa Noel," as Santa Claus is known among Cajuns in Louisiana. It's a tradition that can be traced back 300 years. By now, the construction of nearly 150 bonfires here in the River Parishes is normally well underway. This year, Weidert has had a late start.

A three-month, statewide burn ban, a response to unusually dry weather, threw into question whether this year's celebrations would move forward. The ban was finally lifted days before Thanksgiving, clearing the way for the permitting, construction, and lighting of the bonfires about 40 miles upriver from New Orleans.

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It was a "Christmas miracle" for die-hard bonfire builders like Weidert, 37, who now has children of his own and wants the tradition to continue. For families like his, it spans generations; his young daughters play nearby, sliding down the hill on discarded cardboard as he builds.

"It was a big weight off our shoulders. It felt like all of our planning and preparations beforehand didn't go to waste," Weidert said. "We don't want to inadvertently cause any wildfires with something that's completely preventable. So if it came between building bonfires and not burning down the forest — the obvious choice is not to burn down the forest for safety reasons. We understood that."

But he remembered what it felt like when COVID-19 canceled all bonfires in 2020. "It was depressing not to have something you've been doing every single Christmas of your life. It felt like there was a hole. We didn't want that again."

Hanging on to the tricentennial celebrations is not easy in modern times with growing climate threats. Besides COVID-19, high river levels, and the drought, the ballooning cost of insuring the event and other risk factors have culminated in an extensive list of guidelines to ensure a safe bonfire season.

At its peak, 5,000 visitors a day will visit the festival and bonfires along River Road before Christmas Eve, according to Festival of the Bonfires board member, Ashley Hymel. "It is such a big benefit for us to have the festival bringing people into the parish."

But this year, Louisiana suffered its worst wildfires in a century, a generational event that destroyed forests and threatened rural towns.

In St. James Parish and St. John Parish, where the bonfires are set ablaze along the Great River Road, rainfall was more than 20 inches below normal. Calls to Lutcher's small volunteer fire department in St. James Parish have grown from an average of two daily calls to five.

"We experienced a decent amount of rain and more is expected. St James Parish is now in a much better position," Parish President Pete Dufresne said during a livestream on Facebook announcing the end of the burn ban. "This year is the second driest year in St. James Parish in the last 129 years. If you choose to burn, please take every precaution."

Officials decided the bonfires could continue with some restrictions like banning fireworks or wrapping bonfires in cane reed used as kindling. The cane reed emits a popping, firecracker-like sound but it also carries embers when it burns.

Jason Amato has overseen bonfire permits for nearly 30 years in St. James Parish. He was also one of the first to complete his bonfire this year with his brothers and nephews.

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Amato, a parish council member and a former volunteer fire chief, says he is glad the drought didn't dry up this year's festivities, which he's been celebrating since he was 4 years old. In the first three days of permitting, he issued 45 permits. He expects this year to be one of the largest ever.

"It's just a significant event, especially on Christmas Eve when thousands of guests, as we call them, come down to be a part of this spectacle," Amato said. "We have a really tremendous spirit of community here where there are open houses along the river road and people who may not know each other are just mingling. It is the true spirit of Christmas."

Amato said the restrictions are a good compromise to keep the tradition going.

"In the early days, you could put anything and everything you could find inside a bonfire," Amato said, noting that items like tires, plastics, bottle rockets, and firecrackers that residents would add to the pile are no longer allowed. "Now, we've gone green. It has to be just wood, either trees or driftwood. We've also minimized the height of the bonfire from 40 feet to 15 feet. It's all in the effort to maintain safety."

Most of the structures are simple cone-shaped pyres. Since 2013, a group of about 12 of Weidert's boyhood friends known as "Blood, Sweat & Bonfires" has built extravagant, eye-catching shapes, sometimes with moving parts. In years past, his favorites include a breast cancer ribbon, an alligator, a snapping turtle, a bullfrog, a space shuttle, a brown pelican, a blue crab, a beer bottle and a 30-foot-tall guitar.

With his permit in hand and the morning dew sparkling in the November sun, Weidert makes his way up the grass-filled levee carrying fallen trees. Within minutes, the sound of a chainsaw quickly drowns out the sound of nearby riverboat traffic as he starts to arrange wooden oak tree logs to form a base for his structure.

This year, their design — a 30-foot alligator garfish — was "scaled back" because they were short on time: At 6 feet high, it includes 200 teeth and 600 scales, all crafted by hand. In five days, the head and tail were framed. The group hopes to finish by Dec.17.

Weidert said some of the builders take vacation time to build the structures while others devote their weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas. He can still remember as a kid watching elaborate fires in the shapes of an oil rig, train, and airplane on the same levees.

"It's just something we enjoy doing. It gives us a sense of accomplishment. I'm building something that a little kid is gonna remember for the rest of their life," Weidert said. "We're such a small town and there ain't much out here except for what we do with our bonfires; so, we are just trying to put our little town on the map the best we could."

Last year, Weidert said people from 32 states and nine countries visited their bonfire and signed a guest book.

The precise origin of the bonfires is unclear, though most people believe that the practice dates to the early settlers. The River Parishes, which include St. James, St. John, and St. Charles Parish, were settled by the French and Germans in the 1700s. Those settlers brought with them summer and winter bonfire traditions that evolved into the modern celebration along the river, according to historians.

Some believe the practice was introduced to help guide ships safely along the Mississippi River or to light a path for Christmas Eve churchgoers, while some say enslaved people built them to celebrate the end of the harvest season. Modern-day interpretation is that they assure Papa Noel's safe Christmas Eve arrival.

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The celebration has grown in recent decades, expanding in the weeks leading up to Christmas Eve with "The Festival of Bonfires" in Lutcher which includes bonfire lighting, a gumbo cookoff, pageants, crafts, and carnival rides. This year's festival kicks off on Dec. 8.

Hymel said each year the event is supervised by the local volunteer fire departments on the festival grounds and on the levee, which have the power to decide whether conditions are safe to light the bonfires right up until the last minute. Only permitted families or groups can build fires in certain locations.

"Whenever I was younger, my grandpa happened to be in the fire department. And I remember as a kid going with him and being on site. My fondest memory is him getting over the loudspeaker on the fire truck telling everybody it was time to light the bonfires. I can't ever imagine Christmas Eve without that," Hymel said.

Weidert and his friends plan to continue the practice for as long as they can to make sure history and tradition burn brightly. He wants to see more female builders — maybe someday his daughters — join the levee's Cajun Christmas celebration. With the ongoing threat of drought, organizers say the future is as uncertain as the weather.

"I'm surprised that it's continued this long. Insurance policies and things like that are getting extremely expensive," Hymel said. "It has become harder and harder for us to be able to do this. But, you know, we won't go without a fight to make sure that our tradition continues."