This episode is brought to you by the Mazda CX-50. Move and Be Moved.

Hey, I'm Kelly McEvers, co-host of the Atlas Obscura podcast. The holidays are coming up soon,

and before we get started, I just wanted to tell you about one Christmas that I spent in northern Iraq,

in the Kurdish city of Erbil. I was based in Baghdad,

and Erbil was a quieter place at that time where I could meet up with my family and spend the

holidays. And I remember we ended up going to this monastery up on top of a mountain. It's thought to be one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the

world. It's from the fourth century. It's called the Mar-Matai monastery. At one time, it housed thousands of

monks. It has been sacked many times. Most recently, it was under threat by ISIS,

and all of its documents and artifacts were taken out of the monastery and preserved. It is this

amazing beacon of resilience in this very turbulent part of the world. And it was an incredible way to spend the

holiday that year. So for the next two weeks, as a way to count down to the holidays, we are going to

share more stories, the kinds of stories that we like, offbeat stories, stories that are from

unusual places. We're calling it 12 days of wonder. We have stories that will

make you laugh, stories that will make you feel all fuzzy. Some of the places in these stories are

easy to get to. Others are impossible to visit, but they all have something in common. They are weird

and wonderful. First up, a story about how you do Christmas in the desert. We're not going to a rock this time.

We're going to Arizona to hear about a very unusual Christmas tree. Here's the episode.

It's Christmas time in the desert, Chandler, Arizona.

The weather outside is frightful, I mean, by local standards.

The holidays are typically cooler than normal.

You know, it's maybe 50 or 60 degrees.

You see people in winter jackets and toboggin hats and those kinds of things,

...