EMERSON, N.J.—Resident Daniela Musano has ideas about community building and place-making that, fortunately, she also acts on.
Over the summer, during the lockdown, she, her daughter, and a few friends created an enchanted forest behind the Board of Education building.
“I like to do stuff like that, and I thought about New Year’s Eve and how people are not—or they shouldn’t—have parties, and how they’re not going to be together like they usually are. I thought, there must be a nice activity or something to do in a small town like Emerson that’s totally doable: have these lights outside and drive around and look at the magic and the glowing. I just thought it would be cool,” she said Dec. 30.
Musano, a master esthetician and massage therapist who’s owned her own spa in Ridgewood for 21 years, was describing a townwide luminaria display she conceived of earlier in the month and promoted online that captured hundreds of other residents’ imaginations.
Set for New Year’s Eve at 7 p.m. with a rain date of Jan. 1, 2021, the display of white electronic votives within white bags promised to create a marvellous spectacle on sidewalks, driveways, porches, and other homey spots visible from the street.
The timing was intended to take advantage of the dark of night while being early enough to get little ones home in time for bed.
Musano suggested people turn off their Christmas lights for the few hours of the display so the luminaria would make a stronger impression.
Musano said, “I think that it’s really nice to drive around and know that you’re doing something together even though we can’t be together—a sense that we’re all kind of ringing in the New Year together.”
She said, “It’s a feeling of unity. I think in unity there’s strength. It’s like a warm hug.”
Extra money rounded up from the sale of the fire-safe, reusable luminaria—it was $10 for five bags, with lights—will be donated to Epilepsy Services of New Jersey, where Musano serves on the advisory board.
Musano and her project “co pilot,” Pam Adelman, at first tried to organize “block captains” but gave that up, enjoying hearing from residents who were spreading the initiative on their own.
“I sold over 400 luminaria, which is kind of impressive for a little town. I think there should be 420 throughout the town, and some blocks organized where they would have multiple homes in a row,” she said.
“My whole corner organized: Jefferson Avenue and High Street. I’m going to have 15 bags out,” she added.
She said one person in town bought a lot of 50 luminaria and shared them with her neighbors, “so that’s one area that’s going to be amazing. And the same thing happened in the Soldier Hill area.”
Helping Musano prepare at home were Emmie and Sebastian, both 5, and Lulu, 13.
“Emmie is such a little helper, and she did a lot of bags with me before losing interest—she really helped, and it was really cute,” Musano said.
Asked whether she hoped the project would become an annual tradition, Musano said, “For sure I hope it will be. People are going to see it and then be like, Wait a minute, how come I didn’t do it? and then next year it’ll just get bigger and bigger, and hopefully Emerson will just be the town that always does that.”
She said, “That would be really nice. And if we always attach a charity to it, just to spread the help, that would be perfect.”
Asked her view, Councilwoman Jill McGuire praised the initiative. “Emerson has had individual residents and various community organizations step up in big and small ways to encourage a sense of community in 2020. Emersonians have truly shown through their actions why Emerson is ‘the family town.’”