An African Christmas

While real Christmas trees are flown in from France and sold at the high-end supermarket in town, Olivier is strongly against the idea of killing trees for our own pleasure, and I myself enjoy working with local plants each year to get a similar, yet slightly African effect. When looking for ideas this year though I kept wishing I could just decorate the very odd pine-looking tropical tree in our back yard (still must look it up to see what the heck it is). Unfortunately though we've had such terrific rain storms over the past few weeks that I just didn't dare.

The idea I got then was to just use the top of the tree as our own indoor Christmas tree. This, of course, involved having it cut off, which Amadou proudly told me he could do with his machete.

With the help of handyman Abdoulaye and a very taaaaaaaall ladder, Amadou shimmied right up to the spot I had been eyeing for a few days. As you can see, Cecilia was right there with them to give them her advice:




Here's Amadou in his handy orange coveralls, and if you look carefully you'll see his machete aiming straight up in mid-chop:

I guess he keeps the darned thing sharp, 'cause in no time our Christmas tree came crashing down!
Some of the branches on the left broke off during the fall (landed halfway in neighbors' yard, much to their curiosity)...
but when I potted the whole thing I managed to stuff one of the broken branches in to fill the tree out...
And with a bit of decorations we've got ourselves a truly African Christmas tree!! I've since added tinsel and put Christmas hats on two bronze Pigmy statues guarding it. Will post the final "look" later tonight with the presents under it!