Selling Christmas Trees in TX-Week 3

December 1-7, 2020

Day 15, went grocery shopping at 7am, no one is in the stores then. I started at WinCo when they didn’t have ricotta cheese had to add a stop at Walmart too. When I arrived home the sewer pump-out service was here, yeah!!! Our hose from the commercial building froze last night, more cold weather coming in the forecast, as soon as the hose thaws we’ll be adding some water to the freshwater tank. As Dave took off for his delivery at 8:30 a customer showed up, guess we’re open now. 1^st sale of the day on the books. Now to get our end of month personal stuff done.

Thanks to all who commented I’m now getting emails of your comments so I know to go approve them. And that was my TILT (think I learned today) for yesterday. When I ran my teller line I challenged my tellers with getting a TILT a day. I didn’t care if it was something new they learned about a customer, something about work or something they were interested in, I firmly believe we learn something every day.

A quiet morning led into an active afternoon and early evening, of course as we were trying to get our lasagna dinner on the table we had an hour-long rush of folks. We had an extremely generous customer today who gave us a $50+ tip. The deliveries for this lot, are down from what we had at Keller last year, but tips are up, and boy they sure do add up.

By 8:30pm we had sold 21 trees. Of course, the owner decided to bring 30 more trees today, we have sold 383 trees and have 204 more to go.

Day 16, rainy cloudy start to a slow day, our first customer was at 11:45am. We then enjoyed some more slow rainy time, until 1:30 when we sold a couple of our largest trees. Separate back to back customers came in for our largest trees, only a few left and our largest trees will be gone. It’s only December 2^nd, this is crazy. Our boss is trying to make it through the second December weekend, he’s found a wholesaler he’s getting some trees from, we’ll see what this weekend brings, much less the rest of the week. In the afternoon he brought us another 131 trees.

By 5pm we had 11 trees sold, by 6:30 we were up to 15, slow day is continuing. One of our sales today is being delivered tomorrow morning, we will be on the road to the delivery at 7:30am so we can be back before we open.

Total sales today 19 trees, total trees sold 402, trees still on lot 316.

Day 17, home from our delivery by 8:15, sit down to finish our morning routine. At 8:30 our motion detector goes off and we have our first customer and the first tree is sold today.

We unwrapped the 131 trees we had delivered, half are now on display and it won’t be too long before the rest have. Ralph, the owner, has bought up all the trees he could, he still has a 150 to be distributed, it all depends on who does what over the next few days.

We’re sure won’t be staying as long as last year, this weekend will determine how much longer. All the lots will close at the same time, should be by the middle of the month. I’ve got us some reservations at some COE parks on the way down to Goliad State Park where we’ll now spend 8 days over Christmas before heading to Gulf Waters Beachfront RV Resort in Port Aransas TX for a few months.

2pm and only 5 trees sold so far today, by 4:30 only 7 sold, it’s been a cold day with wind and overcast. We shall see how the evening goes, I have layers on to stay warm while we’re outside, gloves and ear warmer sure help too.

We had a few more sales but it ended up being a cold slow day. Daily total 12 trees sold, total so far sold 414, 304 trees on the lot.

Day 18, Friday, a cold frozen water line, the line from the building which is exposed on a concrete parking lot, it’ll warm up in a while. It should be a busy day, the starting time could be any time. A bank run and some tidying up and we’re ready for our first Friday in December. This is supposed to be the busiest weekend, with the stock we have I just don’t see it. Trees 7ft and higher are in short supply and will probably be sold out by the weekend, unless Ralph pulls a rabbit out of the hat.

By 10:45 we had 4 trees sold, not a bad start. Ralph came over and we got the last of the trees tagged, we’re all good for the weekend.

The day actually didn’t ever get crazy, by day's end though we were ready to be done. Made a dinner casserole from the leftover chicken and turkey, and spaghetti noodles, in the fridge.

It has been a little sad around here recently for Dave, he finally gave in and tossed out two shirts he's had for 20+ years. They've been work shirts for him for a while now but after these past few weeks, the shirts are now history. 

Total sold toady 21, the total sold 435 trees and 283 left on the lot.

I had closed out the books at 8:40, at 8:45 we had a little rush, we didn’t get off the lot till 9:20 but we had 4 trees sold towards Saturday’s total.

Our days are the same week in week out while we’re here, the only time it changes is when we get off the lot for the few things we need to take care of, laundry and groceries. We are usually up in the morning around 6:30am and we let our day start slowly unless we have a delivery. About 8am Dave goes out and waters the trees unless the hose is frozen. 9am he goes out and turns the lights on for the lot, we then take care of whatever daily things need attending too, moving trees around, cleaning up and bundling boughs, making little Christmas trees and forests, and other general maintenance. Usually, our foot traffic slows down around 8pm, Dave usually gets started on the trees around 8:30, I work on the books and lights go out at 9pm. Repeat for about 4 weeks.

Day 19, the first Saturday of December, cold start to what is supposed to be a partly sunny day with highs in the 50’s, let’s see how many trees we can move today.  Our first few customers were early on, the morning then dragged on for a while but the afternoon certainly picked up. By 7pm it was slowing down, busy enough this afternoon to keep us going all the time but not so busy we were going crazy. Our supply of trees over 8’ is almost gone, we have one tree that is 13’ but it’s a funky skinny tree, not sure if anyone will bring it home this year. Leftover lasagna was eaten on the fly, but hey we got some food into us.

Today’s sales total is 64 trees, for a total of 499 trees sold so far and only 219 trees to go.

Day 20, the first Sunday of December, a rainy start to the day but at least the temps are in the high 40’s.  Again today is part of what was supposed to be a crazy weekend, which didn’t seem to materialize yesterday. We left at 7:45am for a delivery, back by 8:10 to relax before our day starts. Before the day got going our boss Ralph stopped by to pick up the previous day’s receipts, instead of more trees we’re now starting to talk about takedown plans J again here’s where our experience pays off, we know what we can do to make the shutdown process go smoothly and quickly. Our first tree sold was about 10:45, it was the 500^th tree sold this season. By 1:45pm we had sold 15 trees, not a brisk start but it’s certainly better than none. By 8pm we had sold more than 75% of our trees gone. Not a bad day, especially when you’re able to eat your Pasta Fagioli without interruption, another one of our frozen dinners.

Sold 47 trees today, total trees sold 546, only 172 trees left to sell.  

Day 21, this is the last day of our 3^rd week here, we have now sold 100+ more trees than we did at the Keller lot last year, and in only 3 weeks, not 4. A cold morning, frozen hose so no tree watering this morning. Today is the cleanup day after the weekend, not too much though as it wasn’t as crazy here as last weekend. Bundles of boughs to makeup, ties for vehicle tree tie-downs need to be made, trees inspected for broken branches and grounds picked up. We do not wrap or shake our trees, we are always glad to see customers with trucks, otherwise, Dave helps the customer get it on top of their vehicles and ties them down.

Layering, a term to cover so many things: cakes, geology, clouds and so many more. I was looking at all the jackets and shirts, on my dining room chair, that I’ve been using the last week or so. Dave and I have both lost over 40 pounds since the end of July, with the loss of our own personal insulation layer I’ve had to resort to a tank top, a long-sleeve Henley shirt, denim shirt, and a lined jacket, and as the day progresses I get rid of the jacket and denim shirt. By the time it’s dark I’m back to adding layers.

Today we took down the lumber that held the trees along the very back wall and part of another side. We also sent one of our counters back to storage, we sent back the large Christmas tree stands since we no longer have any large trees. We won’t be getting in anymore stands so the supply we have is all we’ll have.

2 pm and we’ve sold 3 trees so far, 7 more hours to go.

The back and side tree supports are down,
more to come down soon.

By the close of the day, we had improved our sales a little. 

Sold 15 trees today for a total sold so far of 561 trees with just 157 to go.

Until next time...