Selling Christmas Trees in TX-Week 2

 November 24-30, 2020

Day 8, a cold rainy wet day, yuck! Early on we had decided to have our Thanksgiving meal on Tuesday, Thursday could be a busy day. What a great day to have the oven on. While a full Thanksgiving meal would have been great we decided we really didn’t need all the calories so we cooked a turkey with stuffing, had some raw carrots, and a cheese dip with it. Enough for a great meal, we didn’t feel stuffed, and have some great leftovers for the next few days. The day cleared up and by day’s end we had sold another 16 trees, we’re at 106 sold so far, again it’s not even Thanksgiving and we’ve sold so many trees already. Our evening finished with a bang as we had a severe thunderstorm pass through about 8:40, about 30 miles away a tornado touched down.

Day 9, up and out by 7am, off to do laundry. Laundry can be an adventure when you live on the road, as you’re never quite sure what you’re in for, even if you checked reviews. I got there just as they opened, clean and well kept, affordable to boot.  A beautiful day but sales were slow till midafternoon. Great customers leaving generous tips led to this being the second highest tip day yet. As is the norm by 8pm the lot emptied out, during the 8-9 hour Dave starts watering the trees, the trees drink through their needles, when we sell a tree we cut a new end on the tree trunk so the tree starts drinking through its trunk. During that time I get the books closed out for the day and any sales go on the next day’s totals, we have one for tomorrow’s totals. For the accounting though, we sold 21 trees today, only 340 to go.

Moving hoses around the lot

Day 10, Thanksgiving Day, wonder how the sales will go. Dave has a delivery for 9:30 this morning, we have one late sell from yesterday and 2 trees on hold to be picked up this morning, so the day is starting off well.

All loaded for a delivery

It was a beautiful day, our “rush” was between 12-3, and we were even able to eat our dinner meal without interruption. Since we’d had turkey earlier this week our Thanksgiving dinner was steak, baked potato, and peas, we only had 2 customers from 3-7. Ended up being more of a rest day for us which is good since we expect to be slammed over the weekend. We sold 12 trees, for a total of 139 trees so far, and only 328 trees to go, we’ve sold more than 25% of our trees!!

Day 11, Black Friday, no trees on hold, no holdover sells from yesterday. A few hours of quiet before we turn the lights on. We are receiving help today, Chris will be here around noon. The help we receive is provided by the tree owners. Some of them come from Michigan with the owners and on busy weekends they are sent to help out the lot attendants. The owner has told us to expect to sell 80+ trees today. Bring it on!!

7:55am, Dave’s out watering trees, a customer shows up, 8:15 tree sold, on the car and we’re back to relaxing before the day begins again.

Dave prepping a tree for a customer

Our help showed up before noon, it was a little slow until 10am, next thing I knew it was 4pm, no lunch and the customers kept coming, I snuck away for a few minutes to get a quick snack then right back into it. The only time I was off my feet was when I went inside to work on the sales sheets. If the guys weren’t busy helping the customers or delivering trees they were busy restocking trees. Our pile of trees in front of the RV is now standing and awaiting perusal. Around 6:30pm we finally caught a break and were able to heat up some pulled pork, here’s where all that early prep is paying off, pulled pork we smoked a few weeks ago really hit the spot. By 8pm the customer traffic was over, our help left and we started getting watering done and the sales figures totaled up.

9:00pm update, 94 trees sold, busy day, some deliveries, and good tips. We are now ½ way through our tree stock, 233 total sold and 234 to go. My feet are tired, time for bed.

Day 12, trees are watered and we’re hoping no one shows up till 9am. We’re finally feeling the aches and sore muscles we felt last winter. Dave had over 30k in steps, mine was much less because I’m usually behind the checkout area. Rain forecasted for today, we shall see how busy we are.  

A slower day, was cold all day and around 4 the rains started, we sent our help home and headed inside. Chicken and noodles, another premade frozen meal, was just what was needed on a rainy evening. We had a few customers come in during the evening, despite the rain and cold, our last customer showed up at 8:50, by 9:10 they were on their way home, that time even included a run to an ATM. We are a cash and check business only, the property we’re on has a bank on it. It is the same bank I use to get change for the cash drawer, we don’t deal in change so I need lots of singles, fives and tens. Hope I make it through tomorrow with the supply I have on hand, lots of singles but not many fives or tens.

Today’s counts: Sold 39 trees today, 272 total sold and 195 trees to go.

Day 13, Sunday, the first one after Thanksgiving, cloudy with a high of 54 forecasted for today, the cold has moved in. After yesterday’s rain, the lot faired fairly well. The first sale was at 10am, we had a few people stop by, browsing, prior to that. By 11am trees were flying out of the tent, we finally caught a break about 6pm. We had opted not to have help today, while we were busy we kept up with the traffic flow no problem when it’s Dave and me, we have a routine we get into and it goes well.  Heated some of our chili we had frozen a few weeks ago, just what we needed this evening, aside from some bites of turkey I snuck in about 1:30pm we hadn’t eaten since dinner the day before.  By 8:30pm we had sold 69 trees, we have 126 left on the lot, rumor has it we will be getting some more trees from another lot.

The home no longer has a pile of trees by it

The aftermath of the weekend

So many trees gone, so few left

Day 14, time to clean up the Christmas tree lot, not that we don’t keep it clean but we have boughs to get rid of and a real good pickup to do. This morning I was wondering why no comments had shown up on the past few blogs, guess what comment moderation was turned on, so I apologize for not publishing or responding to any of you on the last few blogs, I’m trying to get to them now. Going through them I think I remember turning on comment moderation now, lots of spam in the comments…ugh. I think I’ve turned on the email notifications for comments…I think.

Slow start to the morning, got to the bank for some small bills, should be good till Friday. Talked to our friends whose lot we subbed last year. Seems we all had a busy weekend, I think we’re getting some of their trees. Still talk of getting out of here early so we’ve added a few reservations before we get to Goliad State Park where we’ll spend a week, including Christmas, before heading to our place in TX on 12/30.

7pm and it’s been a slow day, only 22 sales so far. We did get 90 more trees delivered so we have stock to get us through the next week or so depending on how well sells keep up. Dave has a delivery set up for tomorrow morning, prior to opening. I think I've gotten all the comments from my recent blog posts responded to. Sales today 22 trees, 362 total trees sold and only 195 trees to go.

11/30/20 Full moon over Carrollton TX

Temps are going down in the low 30's tonight with cold days coming, brrr...

Until next time...