ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / December 11, 1999

LAPLACE – When Randy and Michelle Martinez moved into their new home at 1801 Cartier Drive in LaPlace three years ago, little did they think they would be the caretakers for what could be the tallest Christmas tree in the River Parishes.

Well, it isn’t exactly a Christmas tree. It is really a bald cypress in theMartinez’ front yard. But it is shaped amazingly like a Christmas tree andwith lights on it, it looks like the real thing. Plus, at 40 feet high, it doesseem like the tallest Christmas tree in the River Parishes.

“We’ve been trying to get Randy to do this for three years,” laughs neighbor and friend Richard Borne.

What Borne and two other neighbors, the Reyes and the Yanez families, wanted Martinez to do was decorate the cypress tree for Christmas. Thisyear the four families finally put their money where their mouths were.

“This was truly a neighborhood effort,” says Jos Reyes as he looks up proudly at the tree.

First, the neighbors bought over 4,000 lights, then they went one street over and asked a friend who happened to be an electrician to give them technical advice on how to string the tree.

“Vince Collata really did a lot of the work on this,” admits Reyes.

Collata ended up bringing over a bucket truck so the neighbors could reach the top of the tree. Collata also ran the wiring and hooked up a breaker boxwith all the plugs on the back of the tree.

Reyes says all together it took the friends between four to five hours last Sunday afternoon to finish the job.

Borne says he has friends over in Belle Terre who can see the tree now that it is lit up.

Sandra Yanez, who lives across the street from the Martinez family, says the tree is drawing attention.

“People are beginning to notice it,” she says. “They can see it from AirlineHighway, and I see cars driving slowly by the tree every night.”Martinez, who wasn’t around for the actual decoration because of a business trip, is very proud of the tree. He has put up floodlights at thebase of the tree and made giant Christmas presents to make the whole thing look real.

He keeps the tree lights on from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. “I haven’t looked at my electric bill yet,” Martinez jokes, “but I can hear that electric meter just whizzing away.”But that isn’t important to the residents of Cartier Drive. The effort thatwent into the decorations seems to have brought them all closer together.

They gather under the tree for photographs laughing and full of good cheer.

When asked if they will put other decorations or a star on the tree, Reyes responds mysteriously, “Somehow, I think a star will show up on the top.”Martinez says he will keep the lights all year round because it would be difficult to take them down at the end of the Christmas season.

Martinez mentioned that the tree will be shedding its leaves in a few weeks, so if you want to see the tallest Christmas tree in St. John Parishin all its glory, try and get over to Cartier Drive as soon as you can.

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