Moving the Border

a writing prompt for you + December Writing Hour + holiday posting schedule

Dec 17, 2025

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Here’s another poetic writing prompt I took away from a preaching workshop I attended recently. This one refers to an historical event from Christmas Eve, 1929 along the US/Mexican border crossing through two towns, both called Nogales, and where the poet Alberto Ríos grew up.

Almost a century later, as we cross through another Christmas season where border lines bear witness to greed and violence, perhaps remembering what we human beings are capable of can inspire us all.

You can find the poem online here, and listen to the poet read it himself by clicking below.

Christmas on the Border, 1929

—Alberto Ríos

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Based on local newspaper reports
and recollections from the time.

1929, the early days of the Great Depression.
The desert air was biting, but the spirit of the season was alive.

Despite hard times, the town of Nogales, Arizona, determined
They would host a grand Christmas party

For the children in the area—a celebration that would defy
The gloom of the year, the headlines in the paper, and winter itself.

In the heart of town, a towering Christmas tree stood,
A pine in the desert.

Its branches, they promised, would be adorned
With over 3,000 gifts. 3,000.

The thought at first was to illuminate the tree like at home,
With candles, but it was already a little dry.

Needles were beginning to contemplate jumping.
A finger along a branch made them all fall off.

People brought candles anyway. The church sent over
Some used ones, too. The grocery store sent

Some paper bags, which settled things.
Everyone knew what to do.

They filled the bags with sand from the fire station,
Put the candles in them, making a big pool of lighted luminarias.

From a distance the tree was floating in a lake of light—
Fire so normally a terror in the desert, but here so close to miracle.

For the tree itself, people brought garlands from home, garlands
Made of everything, walnuts and small gourds and flowers,

Chilies, too—the chilies themselves looking
A little like flames.

The townspeople strung them all over the beast—
It kept getting bigger, after all, with each new addition,

This curious donkey whose burden was joy.
At the end, the final touch was tinsel, tinsel everywhere, more tinsel.

Children from nearby communities were invited, and so were those
From across the border, in Nogales, Sonora, a stone’s throw away.

But there was a problem. The border.
As the festive day approached, it became painfully clear—

The children in Nogales, Sonora, would not be able to cross over.
They were, quite literally, on the wrong side of Christmas.

Determined to find a solution, the people of Nogales, Arizona,
Collaborated with Mexican authorities on the other side.

In a gesture as generous as it was bold, as happy as it was cold:
On Christmas Eve, 1929,

For a few transcendent hours,
The border moved.

Officials shifted it north, past city hall, in this way bringing
The Christmas tree within reach of children from both towns.

On Christmas Day, thousands of children—
American and Mexican, Indigenous and orphaned—

Gathered around the tree, hands outstretched,
Eyes wide, with shouting and singing both.

Gifts were passed out, candy canes were licked,
And for one day, there was no border.

When the last present had been handed out,
When the last child returned home,

The border resumed its usual place,
Separating the two towns once again.

For those few hours, however, the line in the sand disappeared.
The only thing that mattered was Christmas.

Newspapers reported no incidents that day, nothing beyond
The running of children, their pockets stuffed with candy and toys,

Milling people on both sides,
The music of so many peppermint candies being unwrapped.

On that chilly December day, the people of Nogales
Gathered and did what seemed impossible:

However quietly regarding the outside world,
They simply redrew the border.

In doing so, they brought a little more warmth to the desert winter.
On the border, on this day, they had a problem and they solved it.

a writing prompt

Find a word, a phrase, an image, or an idea in the poem and start there. Then, let your writing wander freely without any gate-keeping at the borders of your imagination or memory.

December Writing Hour - Sat. Dec 20 | 4-5 pm Eastern

My next live writing hour on Zoom for paid subscribers is this Saturday. If you want to write in company with others, you are welcome to join in. You can upgrade your subscription for a month ($7) just to try it. A separate email to paid subscribers will go out with the link, or you can find it on my Substack tab called Writing Hours. Let’s write together.

holiday posting schedule

I’ve scheduled a few weeks off from regular posting to navigate Christmas as a solo pastor, and to spend time with family. Posts will resume on January 14. Remember you can always look back through the archive for writing prompts to try. I’ll see some of you on Saturday at the December Writing Hour. All my best to each of you this season. Keep writing!

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