A great leaping tongue of fire illuminates the desert hills of Jawbone Canyon, eliciting cheers and gasps from the dispersed crowd. The flame lashes violently at the dark sky before fading, as quickly as it came. Christmas trees after all, are mostly kindling; a powerfully bright flash which dwindles to near nothing. And burning Christmas trees, hundreds of them, is why these folks gather in the desert every winter. It’s the annual SpaceX Christmas Tree Burn. And recent years has seen it grow to near cult status.
From the outsider’s perspective this ritual is endearingly bizarre. Dozens of affluent young men gathering the discarded remnants of the most capitalist celebration in American society: Christmas. Then dragging these trees, like worker ants into the Mojave desert; a desert which by name alone conjures images of desolation and solitude. But this event is anything but lonely, despite its seclusion.
Both curious onlookers, and the wealthy Burning Man community have become aware of the SpaceX Christmas tree burn in recent years and begun to infiltrate its ranks. As with any sacred practice, the intrusion of outsiders is changing this yearly celebration. In the early hours of the revelry, while onlookers poor into Jawbone Canyon, the fire like the affect of the party, remains docile. It will not be until these interlopers have vanished that the real, effusive, profound nature of this jubilee will swell into full effect.
Even at a distance the Christmas tree burn is obvious. Hundreds of bodies surround a converted school bus. RVs both rented and owned, and trailers stacked 20-deep with discarded Christmas trees dance on the horizon. The vehicles circle around the blaze like so many covered waggons. Their hulking metallic bodies are backlit by the fire, which rises and falls like the tides, as trees are added and consumed. Intertwined with the dancing orange glow is the distinctly artificial thrum of neon rods and hoops which pierce the air and twirl along the arms of costume clad people. Rolling trance music echoes through the campground, occasionally caught and blown away by the howling teasing wind that roars off the mountains and down through the valley, before finally blowing itself out miles to the east among the lonely Joshua trees.
Pushing against the wind along a winding dusty road, one is deposited amongst the thronging crowd. Swelling, and retreating as another tree is consumed and the fire forces the revelers back into the darkness with its stark heat and light.
The main party in attendance are SpaceX employees who have driven up in droves for the weekend of revelry. The converted school bus and RVs are only the start. Within the limited eye shot offered by the dancing fire are expensive sports cars, a bivvy of lifted jeeps, studded-tire motor bikes, and more than a few gleaming Teslas. These toys belong to the grown employee-children of Elon Musk, who are by and large young, male, white, and so nearly uniform as to be comical. Clad in their SpaceX jackets, hoodies, ball caps, and t-shirts one could be forgiven for thinking the burn is a company sponsored event instead of a carousel of irresponsible freewheeling masculinity.
Juxtaposed against the backdrop of skinny white 20-somethings with beards are the fans, the groupies, the stumble-ins who look both delighted and alarmed at having found themselves included, by good luck, in the wildest party that almost no one has ever heard of. These interlopers are distinguished by their relative sobriety and appeasing laughter. Later, when the the chilling wind becomes too much they’ll return to their Saturns and Suburbans and disappear into the night.
Then, things can really get started.
The party crescendos into near insanity. The fire flings itself into the sky, sparks swirling on the wind, and enough social lubricant has been applied to the engineers that even the worst ideas seem bright and promising. Music drones. Fireworks light the sky. Plumes of pot smoke twine through the crowds buoyed along by hysterical laughter. Shots are taken, and again, and again. A young man takes a running start and hurls himself over the flames and the crowd erupts into a celebratory din the noise of which could shake the stars from the sky.
Away from the curious eyes of interlopers, these wealthy white urbanites can taste something very nearly like freedom. As Junger posits in his book Tribe these men need a communal bonding of sorts, an expression of masculine community that is so rarely afforded to them in their indoor fluorescent lives. In a society that no longer requires a ritual sacrifice to achieve manhood, perhaps throwing yourself across a flaming pit while your coworkers shriek like banshees is a worthy surrogate. Perhaps the artificial danger of intoxication mixed with dirt bikes is enough to jumpstart the civilized brain back into its more primal state. Perhaps in a society that exalts productivity over fealty, we have turned the extended celebrations of a prolonged adolescence into the closest thing the working millennial has to ritual. If the SpaceX Christmas tree burn is anything, it is a ritual.
A remarkably docile scene greets the sun as it cracks over the surrounding hills. In the light of day the debauchery of the night before is nearly erased. The frenzied charisma of communal connection replaced by the daytime persona of stayed company man. The fire pit smolders as bleary eyed former revelers stumble around the campground picking up bits of litter and loading themselves back into their expensive cars. One by one they depart back down the canyon, returning to their urban lives, the stink of booze and furor following until that too is washed away and washed down with Monday’s coffee.
