On Christopher and Hudson in the West Village, two women named Millie and Mary sit in a red-and-green shed. Their door is wide open despite the freezing temperatures—mostly so anyone can poke their head in but also so they can write your Christmas wish on the front of it in blue Sharpie. (Current wishes include love, success, and Taylor Swift tickets.) But don’t get used to them. They’re only here for five weeks and for one reason: to sell Christmas trees.
Millie and Mary, who asked to be identified only by first names, drove down from Quebec, Canada, right after Thanksgiving. A tree farm company provided them with firs, their shed, and a baler. (Which, as it turns out, can be used more for just trees: Last night, two drunk men paid them $20 to be netted themselves.) Over the first few days, they decorated the stand, painting their shed and carving wooden ornaments that Millie tells me cost, well, whatever: “We tell people it’s in between a dollar and a million,” she says. Then she reveals her Christmas wish: “We’re hoping for a million,” she adds, laughing.
They also decorate themselves: Mary has pink gems across her teeth and often accessorizes with a colorful balaclava. Both try to wear either red or green each day, under pairs of Carhartt overalls. (Carhartt has recently seen a surge in popularity with celebrities—but its designs were originally conceived for railroad workers in the Gilded Age.) “We like having colorful items that we can mix and match to do a nice look,” she says.
On Christmas Eve, their job is done. That night, they’ll go do karaoke with some other tree sellers around their age, whom they met at 32nd and Third. “One of them is my new lover too,” Mollie says, full of joy. “We have lovers that are Christmas tree sellers!”
In 1851, a Catskills woodsman named Mark Carr recognized the growing popularity of Christmas trees in the United States; they had been introduced by German immigrants decades prior. So he loaded up his cart, parked it on the corner of Greenwich and Vesey streets, and sold his so-called mountain oddities to citizens of New York City. (The rent he paid to do so? $1.) By 1871, Christmas had been declared a national holiday, and Carr was just one of many tree salesmen in town.