by Jane St. Clair
Just now we’re going through another bitter Arizona winter with highs around 65 degrees. Outside my window the desert and the mountains look pretty much like they always do. Our only seasons are early summer, summer, high summer and late summer.
We may dream of a white Arizona Christmas, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon. When it does snow in Arizona, we all go a little nuts.
We’re more likely to light up a saguaro than an evergreen tree. And while we will deck the halls with boughs of holly, outside our windows
an Arizona Christmas looks more like Midwest in the fall than a typical winter landscape back East. We put up the holly anyway.
Like people all over the world, we decorate and light up Christmas trees. Okay, we decorate and light up cactus.
We have to make do without the whole snowman thing. We’ll sit around with hot chocolate and pretend that it’s cold outside.
Jingle bells. Jingle bells.
During the nine days of Christmas, we may participate in posada ceremonies. The final ceremony ends on Noche Buena (Holy Night) or Christmas Eve. It’s a great night to eat holiday tamales.
While an Arizona Christmas may not seem traditional, in some ways it may be the most traditional of all. The reason is Arizona often reminds world travelers of the Holy Land.
I think the first Christmas would’ve looked something like what you find here out West. We’re closer to that feel than we are to Madrigal dinners in Merry Olde England or some such thing. You can picture a donkey carrying Mary here, and the Holy Family and the manger in some dusty old desert cave.
Like Bethlehem, an Arizona Christmas has black skies with bright steadfast stars that light up in glory after magnificent sunsets, sometimes with just a few stars and a bright backwards Arab moon.
Do you see what I see?
A star, a star dancing in the night!
He will bring us goodness and light!
IT’S FELIZ NAVIDAD FROM ARIZONA TO YOU!
To plan your visit to Winterhaven, Tucson’s annual festival of lights, go here.