Evergreen Season

Nicolaus Mills: Evergreen Season

FOR MOST New Yorkers, the Christmas season starts with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. In the city’s heart, “Miracle on 34th Street” lives on.

For me, the Christmas season starts more modestly. It begins when the Christmas tree stands start showing up on the street corners. Wreaths, sprigs of holly, and a small forest of evergreens transform the otherwise drab sidewalks near my apartment. On windy days the smell of pine carries from block to block.

But for the men and occasional woman who sell the Christmas trees, it is a different story. In rain and snow, they watch their stands from early morning to late evening. Dressed in the kind of heavy gear more appropriate to ice fishing than shopping, their ability to withstand the elements marks them as out-of-towners. No native New Yorker uses a saw the way they do.

The Christmas tree men I spoke to this year were from Canada, but what they had in common with the New Englanders (all from north of Boston) that I have spoken to in the past is that they regarded their time in New York as a good deal. The trees they brought with them came from local farmers they knew, and after they paid for the trees and added up their expenses, the money they made (nobody would tell me exactly how much) was better than anything they could get working in a store as a Christmas temp.

Costing anywhere from $25 to $80, the trees are not a bargain, especially in this recession, and I have often seen the Christmas tree men spend twenty minutes or more with a family before they made a sale. This winter business reminds me of my own childhood in Ohio when my friends and I charged neighbors $5 to shovel their driveways. We could usually manage three or four driveway between the end of school and dinner time, and I felt as if I had earned a fortune when I came home with $15 in my pocket. But then I was a kid, and all I was doing was supplementing my weekly allowance.

For the Christmas tree men, their month in New York is not a game. The ones I spoke to were saving money by living in vans and eating fast food. What amazes me is that I have never seen a Christmas tree man lose his temper or tell a customer to stop haggling over the price of a tree and just pay up.

It may be that the Christmas tree men just have better manners than most of us New Yorkers. Or it may be they feel so vulnerable they bite their tongues and tell themselves a sale is what really counts. There will be plenty of time when they get back home to complain to their families about the New Yorkers they were forced to deal with.

One thing I do know, though. The Christmas tree men are not sentimentalists. When I asked one what happened to the tress he didn’t sell, he smiled and gave me a single-word answer: “Mulch.” He wasn’t about to shed tears over a few wasted evergreens.

Nicolaus Mills is a professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence College and author of Winning the Peace: The Marshall Plan and America’s Coming of Age as a Superpower. Photo: A Balsam Fir tree farm in Nova Scotia (Blake Wile / Creative Commons / Wikimedia Commons).