O Christmas Tree

We had heard from several people that we should prepare ourselves for the worst with regards to the availability of live Christmas Trees in Chile. Christmas trees just don't grow in this part of the country and since it isn't that common a tradition to have live trees in the home, they are not often shipped from the South. Still we'd heard that with some luck, they could be found.

On the advice of friends, we went into the local home store (think Home Depot) and found a few spruce trees with the roots balled up. My parents had bought ball trees two or three times and I wouldn't have minded going that route if the things hadn't look like the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree's retarded cousins. The best specimens were half dead already and cost $60. Meanwhile we'd seen decent looking fake trees all over La Serena. I honestly wasn't sure what to do. I'd always swore I'd never go fake - but faced with the prospect of either no tree, a dead tree, or a plastic one, I was definitely considering the unthinkable.

Then one day, while driving to meet friends for dinner, we saw a painted sign pointing to a dirt road that said (no translation necessary) "Christmas Trees" . The next Saturday, we decided to take a ride back and check it out. My hopes weren't particularly high and when we arrived at a dead end with no Christmas trees in sight, I was pretty disappointed. However, we decided to walk around a bit. To our surprise we discovered two young boys with saws guarding a small patch of trees for sale. It was a miniature "Cut your own" Christmas Tree Farm.

The trees weren't typical Christmas trees, they reminded me more of pine shrubs, like the ornamental ones found in my parents yard near the back porch. Still we gave them a look over and honestly, liked what we saw. They had the fresh pine scent we were craving, were very healthy, and looked like Christmas Trees, albeit miniature ones. We asked for the price (with a bit of dread, given the $60 price tag of the pathetic ones in the home store) and were surprised to find that they only wanted $10! This was the ticket! David and I picked the best one, the boys cut it down with a few quick strokes (for which we gave them a HUGE tip - I was in a great mood!), we loaded it into the car, and came home triumphant.

That night I set up the tree in our new house and started the task of going through my Christmas ornaments. I was a little scared as to what I might find. Fortunately very few things were broken. This was probably because I had spent half a day last January very very carefully wrapping everything. I knew we were moving, although at the time I didn't know where! Obviously the caution paid off.

So I happily decorated the tree with the best of my ornaments. So Tada! Our first Christmas Tree in Chile.