The Muñoz family brings Christmas to south Phoenix every year. Their story is one of resilience
The faint sound of rain tapping the industrial metal roof overhead is barely heard past the heavy machinery pouring in from Central Avenue.
"Is it raining?" asks Norma Muñoz as she looks up at the sky from where she sits, surrounded by rows of stacked firs in front of her home.
The usually sunny city now wears a different look under the cloudy sky. South Mountain, usually stark and dry, looks beautiful as the desert fauna and flora rejoice in the light rain alongside the people of south Phoenix.
With the ongoing construction for the South Central Extension of the Phoenix light rail, the Muñoz family residence stands juxtaposed as a relic of south Phoenix's past — a throwback to the area's history of single-family homes that once lined Central Avenue.
“We are one of the last houses, I think,” Muñoz shares with The Arizona Republic on a late November evening. But at first glance, you would not make the property — sitting between Southern Avenue and Baseline Road — out to be the multigenerational Mexican home it is.
A forest of Christmas trees visible from Central Avenue makes it difficult to know where the property's front yard stops and where the home begins. Trees ranging in style, with an array of firs, invite customers as they emit a powerful aroma.
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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in south Phoenix.
When most families are worried about holiday shopping and getting the best deals during Black Friday sales, the Muñoz family prepares for the opening day of their family tree lot. This is a multigenerational tradition approaching 40 years.
“We’re still the only family-owned Christmas tree lot,” claims Muñoz about their tree lot on the south side.
The Muñoz Christmas Tree Lot is well known by the community and has become a part of the fabric that makes up the identity of the neighborhood. The lot starts selling trees the Friday after Thanksgiving hoping to sell out just before Christmas. Their most popular tree, the Douglas fir, is priced at $70. Their more expensive tree, the Nordmann fir, is $200.
“The same people come every year. Our little neighbors, every year we see their little faces and everyone grows a little older, including me,” Muñoz says as she laughs. “And then their kids come and their grandchildren come. We’ve served generations here.”
Filling a need: Access to Christmas trees for south Phoenix families
The idea for the Christmas tree lot sprouted from a simple need: access to Christmas trees for south Phoenix families.
A neighborhood sitting south of the Salt River and on the heels of South Mountain, Black and Brown families of south Phoenix would have to venture outside their community to find Christmas trees before the 80s.
Muñoz recalls that before their tree lot, The Lion’s Club, a service organization known for giving out prescription glasses to children, would sell Christmas trees in a booth at South Plaza during the holidays up until the early 1990s.
The late Jimmie Muñoz Sr., his brother Arturo Muñoz and his brother-in-law Joe Rojo pulled their resources together and launched the family tree lot in 1985.
“A friend of (Muñoz Sr.) mentioned that he knew a man that sold Christmas trees in Higley and he thought maybe he could get some and sell them,” recalls Norma Muñoz. That year, the family bought 50 trees.
They set up shop next door to their house, in the parking lot of a batter’s cage — a different project the family had worked on.
“In those days there was no social media or computers and we didn’t have money. We didn’t have the means to put out advertising or big signs or anything like that." Instead, the Muñoz family made do with what they had, relying solely on word of mouth.
So they adorned the trees, taking advantage of the fact that their new project would live right off one of the city’s busiest corridors.
And it worked.
Norma Muñoz gets emotional reminiscing about those days. She remembers them fondly sitting around with friends and making life-long memories. The tree lot remained at the batter’s cage next door for a while, when they outgrew it, they moved across the street from their home to an empty lot.
When their tree supplier moved away to Chandler, the family would drive out to the East Valley and pick up the trees themselves.
“But then my husband said 'you know, I need to find a way to buy direct from someone. I don’t want to have a middleman,'” Muñoz says, saying that realization came to him about 20 years ago. On a trip to visit her son in Washington state, she and her husband made a stop in Oregon and connected with Eric Dohl, the supplier who they still work with to this day.
The cost of rent and the electricity for the tree lot made the family reconsider the location. Lucky for them, they knew a place with just as much space and right off Central: their home.
The Muñoz Christmas Tree Lot made its last move to the family property in the early 1990s.
“One of the reasons my husband started this is because, he said, ‘You know we have to drive into Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale to buy a Christmas tree because there aren’t any here.’ He said it was not right. 'I want to serve my community. I want to be able to sell premium trees because I want my community to have the best. I want them to be able to drive a mile or two and be able to get their own tree instead of going out of our community,'” Muñoz shares, signaling to the pride that her husband had in their Christmas tree lot.
'The Muñoz are always up to something'
Southside pride is evident when speaking to members of this community. And it's that same pride that Muñoz refers to when she talks about what motivated her late husband and continues motivating her family.
“It's a generational community,” Muñoz said. “People live here whose grandparents lived here, whose parents lived here.”
South Phoenix is made up primarily of Black and Latino residents, who have shaped the culture of the neighborhood. Segregation has a deep-rooted history in the community, with proven discriminatory housing policies having reverberating effects that continue to impact residents.
But these are resilient people.
The family has a history of community involvement in the southside, and Muñoz Sr. worked to instill that community pride and dedication in his children.
Both Jimmie Muñoz Sr. and Norma Muñoz grew up in immigrant households in the Golden Gate neighborhood near downtown and what is now a large portion of Sky Harbor International Airport. Like hundreds of families from that barrio, they were forced out of their community as the planned expansion of the airport between the 60s and 80s with the complete demolition of the Mexican-American barrio.
They would then move to south Phoenix, but also had a chance to venture to other places as Muñoz Sr.'s career took him across the country and overseas.
Muñoz served in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army during the Vietnam War, but before he could be shipped out in 1965, he was accepted to an aircraft mechanic school in Virginia. The young Muñoz family would live in Virginia after he was honorably discharged before moving back to Phoenix in April of 1968.
Upon the family's return, they lived at an apartment off of Southern Road and 13th Place. Then came the ranch where the Muñoz family continued to grow, having four sons — James David, Michael, Mario and the youngest in the family Jimmie — and a daughter, Georgy.
In 1972, the family moved into the property off Central Avenue, where they have resided since.
Jimmie Muñoz Jr., remembers how busy his family was growing up.
“There’s a running joke that the Muñoz are always up to something,” he jokes. “My dad was the president of an organization called the South Mountain Youth Development Association and (they would throw) Cinco de Mayo fiestas and 16 de septiembre fiestas (Mexican Independence Day) up on South Mountian back when you could do that.”
Muñoz Jr. explains that there wasn't much to do growing up in the '80s in south Phoenix. So the family organized things for the sake of “having things to do,” as Muñoz Jr. describes it.
“For a while, our community was a little rough, but it isn’t anymore. It’s a really beautiful place to live and I think people will not leave here. We never did. My husband would always say, ‘Why do people move away from their community?’” Muñoz, the matriarch of the family, recalls. “And he’d say, ‘Let’s stay and fix it.’”
The Muñoz family has remained in south Phoenix for nearly 60 years.
“And you know what’s beautiful?” Muñoz poses. “All of my children still live in south Phoenix, except for my daughter, she lives in Laveen.”
A multigenerational endeavor
When setting up shop in the mid-80s, Muñoz and her husband never imagined the business would become the multigenerational endeavor it is today.
On a late November morning, as a load of pines arrived at the Muñoz Christmas Tree lot from Oregon, four generations of Muñoz were ready to unload approximately 800 trees.
Attempting to fit a semi-truck into their property is complicated due to the light rail construction prompting multiple lane closures along Central Avenue, right in front of their residence and business. But once the truck is in the yard, it's up to the Muñoz to get those trees out and put them under a warehouse-style storage shed in front of their home.
“We have to call in the troops,” Muñoz jokes. “All my grandkids, my sons, their friends. We give them a little tip and they unload all the trees.”
This event is a highlight for the family as everyone comes together, including all 22 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren of Norma Muñoz.
Some family videos of this year’s unloading endeavor show a sophisticated process similar to what you would see inside of an industrial warehouse. People inside the trailer pull down the trees and hand them over to someone else who will walk them over to a designated area.
Elder members of the family help organize and count the trees as they arrive.
The Muñoz Christmas Tree Lot has no plans of slowing down anytime soon despite all the changes happening in their neighborhood. After the passing of Muñoz Sr. in August of 2021 at the age of 76, his son took up running the business.
Muñoz Jr. says he does not know a Christmas without his family’s tree lot.
One season, when he was a kid, there were a few remaining trees on Christmas Eve and his father pitched to the kids that whoever sold them would get all the profits.
That’s when Muñoz Jr. sprang into action.
“It gave me an opportunity to make some money,” Muñoz Jr. laughs as he recalls that day.
He sat with six of the small remaining trees, and to his mother's surprise, he sold all of them before the day was done.
“He sold every single one,” she adds. “He made like 40 or 50 bucks. We were like 'damn!'”
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He now runs Passport MX and its subsidiary Passport Destilados, a tequila and mezcal distillery business based in Phoenix. Running the Christmas tree lot is a seasonal occupation for him, as he flies into Phoenix from Mexico City every year. But more than that, it is a family tradition, one that he is happy to be a part of every year.
The first Christmas after the passing of Muñoz Sr., his wife posed a question to her adult children. Would they continue the family business?
"I told them, 'It's up to you guys because I can't do anything with his lot,'" she says. "'Your daddy taught you.'"
They decided to continue the family tradition.
"Someday, I am going to pass and I don't know what's going to happen. I hope in my heart that it continues," she says.
Have a question you need answered? Reach the reporter at rromeroruiz@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @raphaeldelag.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: The Muñoz Christmas Tree Lot is a staple in south Phoenix. This is its story
