The Story of the Christmas Tree Acquisition

With Christmas now less than one month away, we are pushing ourselves to get into the Christmas spirit, despite the rising temperatures and the magnetic pull of the swimming pool (instead of the mall). William and Jackson are particularly excited; William is hoping that Santa will bring him a black bunny rabbit this Christmas and has been feeding our dog and cat daily to demonstrate that he's responsible enough to have his very own pet.

Thus is the backdrop for the Christmas tree acquisition story.

Jeremy is particular about Christmas trees and refuses to settle for anything but a real tree. Unfortunately real trees are much less feasible in Chile (due to the climate they only grow in certain regions, mainly to the South) and 95% of Chileans have artificial Christmas trees. Determined, Jeremy has been talking about our "tree strategy" for weeks now and devised a plan to buy a potted tree from the nursery at the Sodimac (Home Depot equivalent) to use as a Christmas tree. As such, we ventured out last weekend to pick the tree before the rest of the gringos got the same idea. We spent close to an hour sifting through the wreck of nursery trees, trying to find one that was straight and bushy enough to make the cut to be our Christmas tree. After many debates, we decided on the perfect tree only to discover that we couldn't fit it in our car... so we needed to get it delivered.

We had a very detailed conversation with a sales person, in Spanish of course, about how this tree was specifically the tree we wanted. He put sign on it and assured us that it would be the tree that was in fact delivered to our house. Given how many times we have been burned by terrible customer service here, I gently suggested to Jeremy that we carry the tree to the delivery desk and reiterate the requirement that this specific tree is the tree that is to be delivered. Jeremy insisted that the sign and the diligent sales person had it covered and that I was too pessimistic.... so with two mischievous boys pulling at my nerves I reluctantly agreed to trust that the correct tree would be delivered.

Of course, when the tree arrived at the house the following Monday it was the most crooked (at least 30 degrees off the vertical), "Charlie Brown" tree you have ever seen... they must have searched the warehouse and pulled the worst one they could find to deliver to us. Our gardener was disgusted when he saw the tree and managed to work some magic to straighten it and trim it to make it look somewhat respectable. He then told us that we should have never bought a tree from Sodimac and that he has access to much better trees... but who knew! We considered returning it but decided that the hassle was not worth it.

In the spirit of not sweating the small stuff, we have a pathetic little tree - which has been made beautiful by our family spending Saturday morning decorating it together. It's a symbol of our will to survive here and determination to make the best of things that don't necessarily materialize as planned!