A Christmas Tree For Mexico
By Phyllis Rauch
December 2006 Guadalajara-Lakeside Volume 23, Number 4

     Finding the perfect tree for Christmas in Mexico was a challenge from the start. My Austrian father-in-law had toiled for weeks in advance on the decorations for their tree. Each candy or fruit required its individual, colored tissue wrapping; apples and cookies were attached to red strings knotted long ahead. On December 24, the traditional celebration and tree unveiling took place with embraces, a reading of the Nativity according to St. Luke, and toasts of white wine for the adults.
     My husband says that his most enduring memory of those childhood holidays wasn’t of special presents or of the elaborate preparations, but of the tree itself. It was a glorious sight, a noble pine, reaching up to the tall ceiling, and ablaze with hundreds of real candles.
     When we arrived in Mexico, I couldn’t imagine any substitute for a live Christmas tree. Even thirty years ago, Canadian firs were available in Guadalajara for a hefty price. Aware of the paradox, surrounded by palms and hibiscus, blessed with softest winter sunshine, we yet dreamed of and opted for a northern tree.   
     On Three Kings’ Day, the traditional date for tree dismantling, we dragged the fir, still trailing tinsel, out the back door, and stood debating how best to dispose of it. Refugio, our helper at the time, walked over and suggested, “Why don’t you plant it?”
     During our few months in Mexico, we had been treated to more than one garden miracle. The bricklayers for our house had presented us with a variety of dry, rootless branches or weedy green clumps that we obediently planted into the clay and rock rubble of our first garden. We watched in amazement as these unlikely specimens transformed themselves in record time into frangipanis, plum trees, lemon grass tea, and other wondrous living things.
     Refugio now stood waiting for our response. “Si se prende, se prende!” “Yes it will grow!” he insisted.
     What did we have to lose? Choosing a spot with northern exposure, we dug a deep hole and planted it. Then we watered, watched and waited. Refugio repeated his assurances each time he noticed me creeping round the tree, hoping to spy the first faint hint of fresh green life. I’m not certain how long it was before we gave up. Even Refugio could see that this was one dead looking branch that intended to stay dead.
     Eventually I lost heart for purchasing imported northern trees, on sale by Thanksgiving and dropping dry needles by mid-December. My own family tradition opposed the very idea of an imitation tree. How we had scorned those shimmering, pink, aluminum imposters popping up in our Ohio neighborhood back in the Fifties.
     Nonetheless, a young divorcee, returning to the states with her children, backed me into a corner at her garage sale where she regaled me with the merits of her imitation tree. “It’s greener and thicker than the real thing, a Cadillac of Christmas trees. You won’t regret it,” she assured me. At least she didn’t claim, “Se prende.”
     Deaf and blind to my better instincts, I let myself be convinced. I should have known better. Each year thereafter I retrieved that enormous tree from the bodega, unwound the sheets and straightened each stiff, metal branch, grumbling all the while, but obliged to agree that my Cadillac was still taller, thicker and greener than all the rest. Perhaps the family breakup made me hang on to the tree for as long as I did, not wanting to orphan it once again.
     A few years ago I realized I couldn’t face my Cadillac for one more Christmas. Finding a home for it was effortless, the new owners beaming, happier than I’d ever been. But now, what to do for a tree?
     As often, when faced with household dilemmas, I turned to Manuel. I knew that his home, along with most others in our humble barrio of Nestipac, proudly displayed a plastic Christmas tree.
     But Manuel began to describe for me the trees of his childhood. In those days the men of the family had trekked up the mountain behind my house to select an appropriate specimen of the thorny copal, and decorated it with simple handmade ornaments.
     As Manuel recalled those early trees, I remembered having noticed them during our first years in Mexico. Dismissed by me as pitiful and poor, the trees couldn’t compare to my then northern notions of a proper Christmas tree.
     “If you like, Señora, I could bring you a copal. You can decide then if you like it,” Manuel said.
     A grey-green copal, with three-inch thorns, isn’t a pleasant sight at first glance. At Manuel’s suggestion, we sprayed it white, set it up in the middle of an antique wagon wheel, and I began to decorate.
     As I unwrapped and hung the ornaments, many having graced our trees for almost forty years, they seemed fresher and more endearing than the year before. With no real or plastic pine branches to get in the way, I could fully appreciate each individual Santa, wreath or angel, many lovingly purchased or homemade by my mother. Tiny white lights, a touch of tinsel and abundant icicles were de rigueur. Topping the tree, a Jocotepec hand-made angel gazed down at us, lopsided and bemused.
     That evening, when we turned on the lights, my conversion was complete. Unlike any other tree I’d seen, our copal was magical, mystical, Austrian, American, but, most of all, a truly Mexican Christmas tree.
     Now, rather than dreading the Christmas tree tradition, I look forward to it. The humble copal transforms our living room but doesn’t overwhelm. It seems to know it belongs.
     Last year Austrian family members brought us a few real candles, complete with holders for the tree. These looked very much at home on Christmas Eve as we read from Saint Luke, sang the old carols, embraced and toasted yet another blessed year in Mexico.