A Christmas Tree (Dec 9th)

Photo: Searching for the right one! At Ciclo Verde.

Our first Christmas in Xalapa! We just decided not to try to brave the road North with a new born, so off to get the gear ready for the Holidays in Mexico.
Since we left all our Xmas stuff back up North, it was all new for us. It was fun going as a family to get ornaments for our future tree, it was hilarious when we noticed we were picking the colors of the Cleveland Cavaliers… Go Cavs! (ok, we do miss the NBA). But it was rather depressing when we drove to four different stores to buy our tree and they had run out of them! It seems in Xalapa trees start arriving as early as November 15th. We did not want to buy it too early so that it would survive the Holiday season which spans from the 12 of December (Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe) to January 6th (Epiphany), so we had waited as long as we could. Unfortunately, by the 8th of December, there were no trees around. The boys were bummed… and then we discovered Xalapa’s best kept secret… which is not a secret since even buses have ads for the place!!!
El Ciclo Verde (the Green Cycle) is a Xmas tree farm about 30 minutes out of Xalapa towards Puebla. It sits on the mountains on hundreds of acres of land that is used solely to grow pines, firs, etc.
The experience was extraordinary! We drove on a great sunny afternoon in the middle of the week and took a nice little picnic with us. We got to El Ciclo and at the gate they give you a little saw and a map, then they told us which areas were open. We headed to a parking area and started climbing the hill side were hundreds of Nordic Pines were planted. A little bit further, there was another area with hundreds of firs, and further off more and more and more acres of trees. It was not an easy task to decide which tree would come home to celebrate the season with us, but it was fun to measure the beautiful trees and try to have the kids agree on one. Finally, we found the ONE. Dad cut it as we gave thanks to the land for it. A guy from the Ciclo took it, packed it in protective net and tied it to our car. Then the funnest part began: as you drive out of the Ciclo, you get to the picnic area and a big corral with reindeer. We ate, the boys played and checked the deer for a while before it was time to head back home and decorate our beautiful tree.
We were so lucky stores ran out of trees! We wouldn’t have had such an extraordinary experience out in the mountains!