Mexican Christmas Tree Shopping

Something just didn't feel right. Granted, Tuesday morning started like most others here. The sun rose on a cloudless day ... 73 degrees at 7:00 AM. We dressed the way we do every other day ... shorts, t-shirts, sandals. We had our morning coffee as we watched a Princess Lines cruise ship slowly slide into port. But today would be different, because in this tropical slice of the world, where the high is predicted to be 85, we are going Christmas tree shopping … a tradition that until this year usually took place in the chilled fog of the valley or the Bay, or the rains or snows of the Sierra.

It was the week before Thanksgiving when we were surprised by seeing Douglas pine and noble trees popping up at supermarkets, Wal-mart, Costco, and Home Depot here in Puerto Vallarta. While there are several poinsettia lots here, loaded with thousands of the holiday plants, the concept of Christmas tree lots hasn't arrived here yet. And as for tree farms, they're hours away. It seems pines don’t grow so well in the tropical jungle.

Poinsettia lots, but no tree lots

And so the search for the perfect tree began. It’s Mexico style Christmas tree hunting. It is different.

First of all, at every place you visit that sells trees, only one of each kind of tree is on display. For example, Costco had two types … tall nine foot nobles for US$69 , and smaller seven foot nobles for US$53. So the two trees were on display. The one you actually end up buying is wrapped up in twine, and you have no idea what it actually looks like until you take it home and unwrap it there. They figure it’s really not much different than buying a box of raisin bran. You wouldn’t open the box at the store to see how many raisins are in it. You have to wait until you actually buy it, then you find out.

Anyway, the trees at Costco were too big, so we went next to the grocery store, Soriana, which also had trees, inside the store in front of the check out counters. Though the price was right (about US$20), not one of the trees was even unwrapped. And when you touched the tightly bounded branches, the needles fell like snow. We passed.

We next stopped at Sam’s Club where we found large nobles that had just been reduced in price to US$26 … and for good reason. I’ve thrown out trees in January that were fresher than the ones Sam’s Club was selling. If you wanted a green tree from Sam’s, we would have had to have bought a can of green spray paint to cover the brown brittle needles. I thought the poor thing must have looked good last Christmas, but even that I wasn’t sure of.

Finally, before heading back to Costco and buying a tree that was much too large, we went to Home Depot. There, standing right outside the Home Depot entrance, stood three promising specimens. From the parking lot we saw the medium size noble, a tall noble, and a Douglas fir. As we approached, we got the first scent. They smelled like Christmas trees. And when the touched the branches on the medium size noble, the needles were like velvet (well, not really, but compared to Sam’s Club and Soriana, they were soft enough). They had a small tent set up outside the store, so we walked in. And there, stacked on their sides, were mounds of fresh cut trees.

Now, they do things differently here. There is no attendant at the Christmas tree “lot.” So you have to go inside the store, wait in line, tell them what you want. Then someone else comes and gets you, takes to out to the tent, you point out to them what pile of trees you want yours to come from, they take you back in the store, write up a receipt, then you stand in line again to pay (449 pesos, about US$34). Then you go back outside to the tent and wait for the official tree cutter to arrive. About ten minutes later, a kid who looked like he skipped grade school for the day shows up wearing an orange Home Depot apron explaining he would be our tree cutter. He lifts the tree onto a table made from saw horses, and with an electric chain saw, he cuts about an inch of the base. Next he attaches the stand. That’s the challenging part. Nobody probably ever showed him, and I wasn’t paying much attention, but he nailed stand into the trunk of the tree upside down. Proudly, he lifted the tree off the table, placed it on the ground, and it nearly fell over. This was a problem.

He couldn’t remove the stand himself, so he called the Home Depot Christmas tree manager, who eventually showed up with another employee. Like the Three Stooges, they pulled, prodded and pried for about 5 minutes until they finally got the backwards stand off. The manager then put on the new stand and water bucket (held into place with a nail), and then placed it on the ground … a little crooked, but OK. We had our tree, even though we still had little clue what it looked like.

Tree shopping in shorts & sandals.

When we got home, we cut away the twine to get our first view of our first Mexican Christmas tree. As the limbs unfurled, the smell of fresh pine permeated our home. It was actually fresh and green and looked every bit as good as any tree we had ever purchased in the US. I thought the Mexican people had really discovered the secret to growing a great tree. Then, as the tightly bound top branches finally opened, I discovered their success. There was the yellow plastic tag with the name of the grower … from Salem, Oregon.