Full-tilt Fiesta Season begins

Aug. 10

LAS CRUCES — Plan an extra siesta this weekend. Rest up and sleep in. You’ll need it, because SFT (Siesta Fiesta Time) is drawing to a close.

Get ready for Full-Tilt Fiesta Season (FTFS).

SFT has been compromised a bit in recent years. Once, we could count on substantial snoozing during our hottest weather, from Memorial Day through Labor Day, give or take some enthusiastic fireworks to wake us up on the Fourth of July.

But gradually, more and more fiestas have been creeping in, including June’s Pride Fest, New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum’s Ice Cream Sunday, and a host of fun festivities in our increasingly festive downtown area, including Downtown Las Cruces Partnership events at La Placita, Downtown Rambles at museums, shops and galleries the first Friday of each month, and special nighttime Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Markets.

As more organizations remember that we have a big, cool, inside venue at Las Cruces Convention Center and a couple of months that are still less crowded by FTFS Superweekends, chances are more events will be added, and SFT will fade away. We are on the brink of full-tilt, year-around FTFS.

Chile is shaping up as our most feted object, celebrated in Hatch Chile Festival, The Whole Enchilada Festival,  ¡Salsa Fest! and a brand new celebration on Sept. 19, when NMSU presents Project Discovery, offering “music, dance, and the science behind the world’s hottest chile pepper.” Highlights include dance lessons, chile-inspired sorbet and gelato and a promise of “the world’s greatest salsa bar.” We’ll end 2014 and ring in 2015 with our first-ever chile drop.

And there’s lots more.

Butterflies! Beer! Ducks! Art! Music! Wine! History! Comics and pioneers! Playwrights and movies! Mazes! Día de los Muertos! The Renaissance!

Well, you get the idea. We have a lot to celebrate.

To help you plan, pace yourself and maybe arrange a family or friends’ reunion around your personal favorite fiestas, here’s our annual cut and clip list of some of the best of the last of 2014 FTFS. Rest up, gather your fiesta duds and get ready, fiesta animals.

2014 Full-Tilt Fiesta Season

Aug. 16: Butterfly Flutterby, Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park

Aug. 16-17: Tour de Beer, New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum

Aug, 21-24: Deming Duck Races, Deming

Aug. 23-24: Main Street Salsa Fest, Downtown Las Cruces

Aug 29-Sept.1: Labor Day weekend

Aug. 30-31: Franciscan Festival of the Arts, Holy Cross Retrea

Aug. 30-Sept. 1: Hatch Chile Festival in Hatch, New Mexico Wine Harvest Festival, Southern New Mexico Fairgrounds

Sept. 3-7:  White Sands International Film Festival, Las Cruces venues

Sept. 5-7: Las Cruces Comic Con, Las Cruces Convention Center

Sept. 6: Mark Medoff Gala, Las Cruces Convention Center

Sept. 6: Doña Ana Doll Club Show, Columbus Conference Center

Sept. 10:: Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Evening Market, Main Street Downtown

Sept. 13: 26th annual Frontier Days, Fort Selden

Sept. 13-14: Diez y Seis de Septiembre Fiesta, Mesilla Plaza

Sept. 19: Project Discovery, Chile fest, NMSU’s Atkinson Hall

Sept. 20-21: St. Genevieve Church Fiesta & Celebration, Parish Hall, 1025 E. Las Cruces

Sept. 20-21: White Sands Hot Air Balloon Invitational, WSNM, Alamogordo venues

Sept. 26-28: The Whole Enchilada Festival, Hadley Complex

Sept. 27-Oct. 26: Mesilla Valley Maze, 3855 W. Picacho Ave.

Sept. 27-Nov. 2: La Union Maze, La Union

Oct. 1-5: Southern New Mexico State Fair & Rodeo, Southern New Mexico Fairgrounds

Oct. 4-5: Mesilla Jazz Happening, Mesilla

Oct. 4-5: La Viña Fall Wine Festival, La Viña Winery

Oct. 4: Sister Cities Oktoberfest, Mesilla Valley Maze

Oct. 5: Dress the Child Benefit Dinner, Hotel Encanto

Oct. 5: Rootin’ Tootin’ Rib Cookoff and Kids Ranch Rodeo, Mesilla Valley Maze

Oct. 11-13: Silver City Red Dot Art Weekend, Silver City galleries

Oct. 24-25: Ghosts of the Past, NM Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum

Oct. 25-26: Pumpkin Festival, Mesilla Valley Maze

Oct. 25: Zombie Walk, Main Street

Oct. 25-26: Centennial of Tortugas Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish

Oct. 31: Halloween

Oct. 31-Nov. 2: Día de los Muertos Fiesta, Mesilla

Nov. 1 & 2: Renaissance ArtsFaire, Young Park

Nov. 13-16: Las Cruces International Mariachi Conference, Pan Am Center, Las Cruces venues

Nov. 22-23: Home Grown: New Mexico Food Show & Gift Market, NM Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum

Nov. 23: Toys For Kids Motorcycle Parade

December Winterfest Superweekend TBA

Dec. 5: City of Las Cruces Tree Lighting

Dec. 5-7 : La Casa Bazaar, Las Cruces Convention Center

Dec. 7: NMSU Noche de Luminarias

Dec. 10-12: Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta and Pilgrimage

Dec. 18-21: Las Cruces Chamber Ballet: “The Nutcracker”

Dec. 24: Christmas Eve on the Mesilla Plaza

Dec. 31: New Year’s Eve Chile Drop, Mainstreet Downtown

S. Derrickson Moore may be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com, @derricksonmoore on Twitter and Tout or call 575-541-5450.