Well, it’s soon going to be that time of year when our town Tumbleweed tree is fully lit.
Yes, a tumble weed tree.
Right here in downtown metropolitan Chandler, Arizona.
Every year, after outfitting himself properly with a large cage, a tumbleweed disguise and a wild tumbleweed call, a very civic minded citizen (same guy every year) goes out gathering up loads of one Arizona’s more prolific resources: the tumbleweed.
After sneaking up on, capturing and caging hundreds of the wily specimens of desert flora, he spray paints and stacks them in a large upside down cone shaped wire form and strings lights on the whole affair.
Our local officials are very enamored of this annual display of kitchyness, because they allow this monument to be built in our city rectangle. We would have had a city square but someone in the city planning department thought it would be fun to think outside of the box…..(rim-shot, please).
People gather by the tens to stand around this desert version of a Christmas tree and sing carols as the switch is thrown illuminating a conically shaped stack of painted dead brush.
In ninety-degree heat.
Surprisingly, none have ever spontaneously combusted.
We also humiliate our otherwise regal Saguaro cacti by adorning them with Christmas lights
…God, I love life in the desert
The Desert Curmudgeon 