The Tales of The Trees-Final Chapter!!!

 

December 15-16, 2020

Day 29, yesterday after filling our freshwater tank we disconnected from the water source and will be using that for the last few days, now we just need the other tanks emptied before we take off. Hopefully the pump out truck will come today, they should. Not much to do once we opened, we’ll finish our part of the takedown tomorrow.

When Ralph did his daily rounds he told us to pick out the best 15 trees we had, a few hours later some of the work crew came around and picked up all but the 15 trees. J By that time we had already sold 7 trees.

And yes the pump-out truck did get here today, now to just do some water management for a few days to make sure our freshwater tank lasts till Thursday morning. Shouldn’t be a real issue as we made our water tank last a week before.

Trees sold today 9, total trees sold 648, with only 13 trees left on the lot for our last day-tomorrow!!!

Day 30, our final day, started with a trip to the laundry, might as well because it’ll be a couple of weeks before we get to Gulf Waters. A nice visit with the laundromat owners, some clean clothes, filled up the truck on the way home.

We spent some time getting the tires juiced up, getting things picked up, and getting in travel mode. After lunch Ralph and Becky showed up, they told us to get the lot ready to close, the work crew would be around in a little while to pick up the lights and the rest of the supplies. Our first priority was to make sure we could get out of the grass, with the recent rain and very clay soil it’s a bit of a mess. We managed to get out of the grass and onto the pavement, we are at the edge of the lot for the rest of the day and overnight. Then we turned to get things in the tent taken down, the work crew showed up and we soon had things packed up and on their way to storage. We are still open till it’s too dark, we’ve sold 2 trees so far.

About 5pm the crew came by and picked up the last of our trees.

Ralph and Becky will be around later to collect the last of the money and to pay us. J

7pm, Ralph and Becky showed up with our pay, as soon as they left I got in my pajamas and enjoyed an evening of TV watching, gotta catch up with my Hallmark Christmas movies. 

3 trees sold today, total trees sold 651, NO TREES LEFT ON THE LOT!!!!!!!

I did all these daily journal entries to provide info for anyone thinking of selling Christmas trees. I don't usually blog about all the minutia of daily life but these groundhog days I felt might better reflect what we go through. Now back to my regular blogging style. 

Thanks all for following, as my Dad calls it, "The Tales of The Trees". 

Until next time…

Selling Christmas Trees in TX-Week 4

 December 8-14, 2020

Day 22, laundry day Tuesday, once again back to Wash’n Dry here in Carrollton where Helen, one of the owners, was once again the friendliest person in the world. Once my wash was started we talked for about a half-hour. If you are in this area and ever need a laundromat, I highly recommend these folks. Reasonably priced, clean, and friendly.

I was home by 8:45, we opened up and are still awaiting our first sale. While awaiting customers we have taken down center tree supports, it really opens up the place.

Our first tree was around 10’sh. Around noon we got a knock on the door and it was our good friend Pat. He had been visiting one of his sons who is about 45 minutes away so he thought he’d stop in and say hi. It was such a great surprise!! Thank you so much for the visit Pat, we’ll see you in 3 weeks.

By the time Pat left we had 3 trees sold. It never did get busy, but we ended the day with some sales. While the day may have started cold, with frost on the windshield this morning, it turned into a no jacket required afternoon before once again cooling down.

On Facebook today Dave shared some before and after pictures, so for those of you who are not on Facebook. Here’s what’s been our main goal since July 20^th.

June 2020

December 2020

Today we sold 11 trees, bringing our total sold to 572 with only 146 trees left on the lot.

Day 23, a grocery run morning, today Dave decided to go too and get off the lot for an hour. $250 later we’ve now stocked the freezer with some beef, we picked up a beef brisket that we cut into thirds. One-third of the brisket goes into the brine today. Some tenderloins and pork ribs are freezing up for the days when we’re off the lot.

11am and no trees sold, but when Ralph made his daily rounds he and Dave pulled 10 trees from our stock, these trees were in sad shape, they will be picked up and either become fish habits, goat food, or wood chips for the town. The brisket is in the brine, sucking in some deliciousness, cravings for tomorrow’s dinner have started. It’s not too many places we can find good brisket cuts but WinCo had some today, dinner tomorrow is shaping up already.  Tonight’s tenderloin dinner hit the spot and we ate uninterrupted.

1:15pm our first sale of the day, finally, by 4pm we only had 3 trees sold. By 8pm we had 10 sales on the books, lots of folks looking for big trees but walking away still looking. Our biggest trees at this point are about 7’ tall. Probably ½ the people coming in left without finding a tree to fit their wants.

Total trees sold today 11, total sales so far 583 with now only 125 trees left on the lot.

Day 24, brisket in the smoker first thing this morning!! No customers till early afternoon. Our daily visit from Ralph came with the word we weren’t getting any more trees, yeah!! In my opinion, our sales don’t warrant any more trees unless they’re tall trees. So many folks will be disappointed this weekend, many are hardly even going inside the tent when they see our supply of trees, very clear we don’t have much left.

Since it was a beautiful sunny December North Texas day, we sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine amid all the road noise from the nearby President George Bush Tollway and its frontage road. The brisket and wild rice turned out good, leftovers for this weekend. Slowly, tree by tree we managed to squeak some sales out today.

A comment Jim made summed it up well, Groundhog Day, thankfully for only 30 days, only a little longer,and jacks up. J  

Total we sold today 13, with only 112 left on the lot, which brings the total sold to 596 plus 10 discarded. Some of the discarded trees ended up being given to a local nonprofit that works with kids of homeless people.

Day 25, Friday the 11^th of December, our 4^th weekend open, I wonder how many trees we will have when it’s over.  8am the motion detector goes off and we have our first sale on the books. We did a little more dismantling and the center is now completely open. About 9am the rain started and lasted for a few hours, enough to water the trees but not so much as to make it muddy. By noon we had sold our 2^nd tree of the day. The day never got busy and we had very sporadic customers, some of them got out of their vehicles, started into the tent, and turned around. Others are asking when we’ll be getting our larger trees. Then the words “we’ve sold 600+ trees already, this is all that’s left” come out of our mouths and their eyes open wide in astonishment, then they exclaim “we always buy our 13’ tree the second weekend in December”. Not this year!! And trees are not fresher by buying closer to Christmas, it’s been ab long time since they had a really good drink of water.

Today we sold a measly 7 trees, bringing our total sold to 603 trees plus 10 discarded, we have left 105 trees for the weekend.

Day 26, a slow start to Saturday, only 1 tree on the books at 10am. When Ralph stopped by he said we all were leaving on Thursday, Becky, his wife, has doctor’s appointments on Tuesday for her wrist she’s broken since being here. Ralph is seeing doctors on Wednesday for his cancer. They’ll be around Wednesday evening to pay everyone and we’ll be heading to Jim Hogg COE Park in Georgetown on Thursday morning. But till the end, we’ll get as many trees sold as we can. Just need some customers to show up. Today stayed slow for the most part though by the time we closed we had sold a decent amount of trees.

Dave trying to draw in customers

Total trees sold today is 25, which makes for 628 trees sold plus 10 discarded, leaving us with 80 trees, which should be plenty to last till we leave. So nice to see these numbers going down and not continuing to grow.

Day 27, the last Sunday we’re open and it started raining around 6:30am. They say it’s going to last all morning and then get windy and cold, I don’t see many trees being sold. We’ve now sold 200 more trees than last year, though because of the price point on the trees at this lot we’re just not getting to the $$$’s we took in at Keller.

By noon we had 2 wet soggy sales, by 8:30pm we had topped out at 6 sales for the day. Not the day that Ralph hoped for but considering the temps were in the ’40s, lots of wind and rain all day, we weren’t surprised.

Total sold today 6 trees, a total of 634 trees sold and 10 discarded, with only 74 trees left on the lot.

Day 28, just a few more to go. Cold morning, temps in the low 40’s. About 8:45 we headed out into the cold morning, at least the sun was shining, and started more of the takedown process. Lots of our things will be picked up today, Wednesday we'll finish up. We‘ve taken down all the boards supporting the trees, put up some twine to hold them instead. Hoses and most supplies gathered up and readied for pickup. Around 10:30 everything we had readied was picked up. Around noon time we had sold one tree. By 4:30 we hadn’t sold anymore but I had a clean home, I spent a lot of time today cleaning, I haven’t had much chance recently to do a good cleaning but that changed today. Also doing a little getting ready for Thursday when the wheels on the RV start moving. 

The day never did pick up, by 7:30 we had sold 4 trees.

Today’s totals are 5 trees sold, so far 639 trees sold + 10 discarded trees, which gives us only 69 trees left on the lot. 2 more days to sell. 

Until next time...

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...

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... 

Selling Christmas Trees in TX-Week 1

November 17-23, 2020 

And before we knew it we were at our Christmas tree lot in Carrollton TX. No fence around us here, the city won’t let them, we do have 30amp service and a nearby water source but we’ll be running off the holding tank for the duration. We are located at the intersection of Josey Lane and the President George Bush Turnpike-a toll road, on the frontage road, we are next to a bank and commercial building, a WinCo grocery is across the street and Walmart is just down the frontage road. Since our trees had not yet arrived we started getting our area set up, being our second year makes this much easier as we know how things work, lots of tree stands put together and figuring out, keeping in mind social distancing, our check out and tree prep areas are going to be laid out this year. 

Soon after our trees arrived we started unwrapping them, about 360 trees were delivered, and we’ll have the rest finished tomorrow. Then the owner will price them and we’ll officially be open. We should be busy, seems this is the busiest lot of the 5 Trow Tree Farms has around the DFW area. The first day on the tree lot down, sold 1 tree, lots more to go. 

Day 2 had us finishing up the unwrapping of the trees and getting everything in order for the anticipated crowds that will be coming soon. Our trees didn’t get priced but we were given some guidelines and sold another 2 trees and we’re not really open yet. Made a pot roast, we wanted to add to the leftovers in the fridge, no cooking over the weekends. Talked with the UPS driver, he said we should have no problem getting things delivered to our lot. What do I need on Amazon? 

Day 3 we had another 150 trees arrive that needed to be unwrapped, we now have all of our trees on our lot, 463 or so to sell. We still haven’t had our trees priced, the owner got behind because his wife fell and shattered her wrist this morning, tomorrow he should be here to price our trees. We are open though and are starting to have a few people come in and enjoy the scent of freshly harvested trees. Dave spent the morning working on the plumbing connections, the pump needs to be working as we’ll need it for the next 30 days. Pulled pork smoking in the smoker all day, leftovers to the freezer. We’re stocked up for good quick weekend meals, can’t say we won’t be eating well. Another tree sold today. By the way my Bluetooth speaker arrived today, Amazon Prime delivery has found us, we’re not cut off from the world. 

 Day 4, our first Friday open!! For those who don’t know, or remember, we work for Trow Tree Farm out of Michigan. The owners Ralph and Becky have been doing this for many years. Last year we substituted for friends of ours when they couldn’t make it because of health issues. At the end of the season, we were asked to come back and run the Carrollton lot, so here we are. 99% of the trees are Frasier Firs, we have a few Concolor Firs and 2 Blue Spruce. We are open daily 9-9, we are responsible for the upkeep and sales on our lot, we will get help on the weekend-the owner takes care of paying the help. Twice a day we water our trees, they drink through the “leaves” and with the heat here they need to drink two times a day. We have approximately half our trees standing and the rest are laying down ready to go into the sales area as soon as we have more space. The owner, Ralph, came over and we got all 463 trees priced. By the end of the day, we had sold another 10. Not bad considering Thanksgiving is still 5 days away. 

Day 5, our first Saturday open, 4 days till Thanksgiving. What went from a very slow morning turned into a relatively busy day afternoon, by 7 though the customers stopped coming. We sold 26 trees, from 4’ high to 13’ high, from $39 to $329. Not a bad day at all. What we’ve observed these last few days is first-time buyers of a real Christmas tree are in abundance, folks are making new traditions this year. 

Day 6, Sunday morning, and the trees are all watered, we’re open by 9am. We have one tree on hold awaiting pickup by noon, wonder when the first customer will arrive? Slow start but today would be our busiest day yet, 36 trees and yes our on hold tree got picked up. Lots of great customers, made some good tips, all in all, a good day. We stayed busy till 8’sh, Dave watered the trees and I got the books in order. 

Day 7, time to get some groceries. Not many people out and about at Walmart at 7:15am. No crowds, got our supplies picked up, we’re good till after next weekend, except for the produce run early one morning later in the week, then the WinCo across the street will be handy. Our day was surprisingly busy with 17 trees sold. After a week we had expected to really be feeling the ache and pains we felt last year. I guess losing 30+pds each and getting in better shape is paying off, that’s not to say next weekend won’t kick our butts.  

Your Christmas Tree lot attendants
2601 N Josey Ln, Carrollton TX

So the first week is in the bag, we’ve sold 90 trees, only 377 more to go. 

Until next time….