Santa Maria, California on the Central coast is a rapidly growing escape from L.A. and S.F. that many are finding out about and moving to. Things just seem bigger there. Especially things like Christmas trees, wine grapes, tri-tip steaks and all the good stuff that people can sink their teeth into.

Take, for instance, the photo above. We caught this picture of the truck on the 101 (Interstate Highway) carrying home one of the most beautiful, healthiest trees you'll see. You can tell by looking that it is fully shaped.

Before drooling over this specimen, we'd gone to Wal-Mart and Home Depot in Santa Maria to look at trees. They only cost around $20, which was cheap. But this size difference and shape were nothing compared to this tree in the photo above.

Santa Maria is a great place to hang-out on holidays.  The community really celebrates Christmas in style with a parade, homes decorated, and tree lots where you can cut your own tree.  The air is a little nippier than Los Angeles (by about 10 degrees), and it really allows you to get that winter feel of a real holiday.

Notice in the photo the hills look nearly dead and brown. The winters do change the colors of the Central Coast hills to muted tones. In fact, the treat is to see the hills turn green (like the Christmas tree) after a rain of series of them in the spring.

Santa Maria's Christmas Parade is usually held the first weekend in December.  If you miss it, you can still drive around the city to enjoy the decorations.