THIS IS CHRISTMAS COUNTRY
Sleigh bells and furs and snow outside, evergreens and holly and mistletoe. These are the things tradition brings to mind as symbols of Christmas time. It is a gay and happy tradition. One we would not erase if we could.
Yet, greatly though we love the tradition, we love Arizona and pride causes us to repeat again what we have pointed out on other Christmases. This is the real Christmas kind of country.
It was not in spruce forests and on
snowy steppes, not in a Vermont like countryside nor in a London type snowstorm, that Joseph and Mary made their weary journey to Bethlehem. The bells that jingled on the dusty roads were fixed to desert beasts of burden, the plants that made dark silhouettes on a rocky hill against an evening sky were thornbush and cacti.
snowy steppes, not in a Vermont like countryside nor in a London type snowstorm, that Joseph and Mary made their weary journey to Bethlehem. The bells that jingled on the dusty roads were fixed to desert beasts of burden, the plants that made dark silhouettes on a rocky hill against an evening sky were thornbush and cacti.
Following the star, the wiseman trod no lush meadows fed by constant rain, but rather their feet scraped the gravely beds of such desert washes as Arizona knows.
When the babe was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in the manger, the sky above was such a desert sky as Arizona knows, the land was such a desert land as surrounds us here.
So this is why we say that Arizona is truly a Christmas kind of country, more nearly than any other in America like the land that gave birth to him whose anniversary we celebrate today.
It needn't be a white Christmas to be a true one. The first and greatest Christmas of all was in a place much like ours
