my Moroccan Charlie Brown olive Christmas tree

So… what would you do if this interaction happened to you a few weeks before Christmas:

Strangers (after randomly knocking on your door): “um… excuse me… do you mind if we dig up two of the trees in your front yard? We will pay you for them”

You: “um, what?”

Strangers: “yeah… see, we would buy them but they aren’t available anymore and we have this holiday coming up you see and…”

You: “But… I bought those trees and planted them so, you know… my yard would look nice…”

Strangers: “yeah, yeah, we know. it’s weird. we’ll pay you for them…. did we mention that?”

You: “yeah you did. But, it’s also forbidden to chop them down, you know” (Americans might not say it was forbidden, but you get the point)

Strangers: “Oh! yes! we know! We dont want to cut them down, we want to dig them up, put decorations on them and then re-plant them in about a month”

You: “uh….. okay. i guess.”

That’s pretty much how Christmas tree shopping went this year. You see, I had noticed a souq near my village sold potted olive trees back in the middle of summer and i though “HEY! what a great idea for a little Christmas tree! Then i can re-plant it after the holidays next to my house!”. I got my fellow volunteer friend Nicole in on the project idea, my mom sent me battery-powered lights, and I got all kinds of excited about this. BUT when the day came last week for us to go buy the olive trees… the fact that it’s now late in olive season dawned on us in the now-empty olive tree section of souq. Small potted trees aren’t available year-round, idiots. Obviously.

It was thus we came upon a juncture…. to give up and decorate sticks put upright in a bucket (my initial contingency plan) or to forge forward and get creative/shameless? I have to give Nicole credit for encouraging the mission onward…. eventually, after asking in every store we could find, we happend past a yard with several small-ish olive trees planted and thought “well, why not ask?”.

We walked into the yard and knocked on the door. The owner approached us from a different direction, however, where he’d been selling snacks at a table, and, understandably, asked us what we were doing in his yard. We then had a conversation similar to the one written above, which (to our incredible surprise) ended with the men digging up trees for us, wrapping them in plastic bags, and actually seeming to enjoy our Yuletide excitement about the whole thing.

The trip home was exuberant, and followed by the making of Hanut hot chocolate (made from powdered cocoa and powdered milk, both from the Hanut) and the commencement of tree decorating. A good portion of the evening was spent stringing freshly popped pop-corn onto a string to serve as a garland (along with lights and tinsel) where Nicole and I learned that stale popcorn might be easier. FYI.

All in all, it was a wonderfully random and unexpected experience. In so many ways similar to going to a Christmas tree farm in America, selecting a tree, chopping it down and dragging it home…. but in so many ways different (as everyone thought we were nuts, it’s not their holiday we are celebrating, many people were wondering why we weren’t looking for PINE trees… a fair question… and its just straight up strange to ask a stranger to dig up a tree for you, right?)

In the end, we made new friends in this souq town, and amidst promises to print out these pictures and bring them back to the family, we were off on our merry way! I love the holiday season, even in it’s weird reincarnations in foreign cultures. Merry Christmas everyone!

diggin' up the tree

tree in bag

thank you for letting us dig up your yard lady!

testin' out the lights, thanks mom!

almost finished....

me and my tree... my tree and me

my tree-diggin-up partner in non-crime

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