Oh, Christmas Tree

In 2001 we finally were able to begin living in our casa in Alamos, Sonora even though it was not completed and wouldn't be for several more years. Ours was what the Mexican called poco, poco, which means little by little. That is how most of the casas in Mexico are built as no one has the money to build one from the ground up to completion right away.

Naturally that first Christmas in the casa I wanted to celebrate with a tree as some of our family were coming and I wished to have a tree for the grandsons. The only place I had seen trees for sale was in the neighboring town where we did our shopping. The trees there were bagged in a netting and piled in a stack and so dry all the needles were falling off. The tags on the trees noted, imported from Canada. Those trees probably had been cut sometime in the past fall.

One day I was talking with a Mexican friend of ours I mentioned I would like to have a live Christmas tree. He responded, "no problemo", that being the wonderful stock answer for many things in Mexico. He assured me that he would bring me a tree. He worked for the government in some capacity in the nearby countryside. Alamos being in the foothills of the Sierra Madre I had visions of a nice evergreen tree. One day shortly after that conversation he showed up with not one tree but two from which I could chose. My choices were between a leafless thorn bush, one of many which the state of Sonora is blessed or the one I chose, the beginning bloom stalk from a yucca plant. Once decorated as you can see it made a wonderful, but different tree. When the lights were turned on it was downright beautiful.