"O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...."

I loved working in the Christmas trees ! !
I guess I came by that honestly, because my mother used to talk about working in the Christmas trees in Idaho before I was born. I even probably worked at some of the same Christmas tree farms as she had worked at.
It started when the kids were little, and we lived in the little shack in Paradise Valley (see the "places I have lived " thread for picture) , and I worked in the hop fields in the summer, and then the Christmas tree farm starting in November.
We would cut trees, and load the huge semi's that came in for trees, and even though it was bitterly cold; I still enjoyed the work and the smell of the trees when we cut them.

After we moved into Spokane; I worked at the lot where they sold the Christmas trees, and I really enjoyed doing that even more than working at the tree farm.
Invariably, if the wife wanted a fat, bushy tree, the husband wanted a taller, skinny one. Finding one that pleased both of them would often take a while, and had me bringing out and standing up a lot of trees while they picked out the perfect tree.
Usually, the husband was tired of being dragged from store to store and buying Christmas presents anyway; so after realizing that he was not likely to get his tall, skinny tree; he just gave up and said whatever she wanted was fine.
As Christmas got closer; the price of trees went down, and we started negotiating the prices, and just sold trees for whatever we could get for them. What had been a $25 tree now happily was sold for $10.

The day before Christmas Eve, the lot officially closed down, and the owners let us sell any trees we could sell the next day. My kids loved selling the trees, and having the extra money to spend on toys they wanted.
Eventually, people stopped coming, and we picked out the nicest tree that was left, and went home to decorate our own tree on Chritmas Eve.
After Christmas, most everything was on sale; so the kids could all get more for their money then anyway, and they were happy to spend the Christmas money when things were all half price or less.

 

Richard, I agree with you about the flocked Christmas trees. They make a great "Fantasy Tree"; but certainly do NOT have any realism. I think that the white ones are not so bad, since they do resemble an actual snow-laden evergreen; but the pink and purple ones are surreal, although beautiful in their own way.
Many times the larger stores would have an area that was a Christmas scene, and they often used the flocked trees for those. I actually liked them in the stores because the whole little Christmas scene was pure fantasy anyway, with all of the pile of beautifully wrapped presents, and little trains and rocking horses around the tree.

 

I have a hundred acres of land upon which sits several nice potential Christmas trees, the problem being that I can't get near any of them after the snow falls without a snowmobile, and even then I'd have to hike through some pretty deep snow. So we buy ours at the Christmas shop. I have had fake ones in the past but much prefer a real tree.