The friendly Canadian who was selling farm-bred firs on Hudson Street was clearly nonplussed when I told him that I’d never owned a Christmas tree.
You see, as a Jew from New Jersey, there has never been an occasion. Well, there was that one year when my parents broke down and bought my brother and me a tree. But that doesn’t really count since my mother insisted we refer to the Colorado spruce that had been carefully adorned with disposable red and green K-Mart Christmas balls and garish silver tinsel as a “Hanukkah bush.” So, last year, when I started dating Todd, a sweet, smart, funny Presbyterian, I thought, “Finally, the opportunity to partake – more or less guilt free – in the merriest of holiday rituals.”I’d never picked through Christmas trees on the streets of New York, so the perennial holiday endeavor had taken on a mythic mystique. When envisioning the quest, I imagined myself as the leading lady in a classic Hollywood movie. Picture it: a thin blanket of snow has just settled on the streets of Manhattan. I’m wearing a couture overcoat and cashmere shawl and could easily be mistaken for Audrey Hepburn while Todd, in a rugged leather coat and matching hat, resembles a young Indiana Jones. We stroll arm and arm from vendor to vendor leaving perfect tracks in the pristine snow, and then, just when Bing Crosby’s rendition of “White Christmas” is about to end, we happen upon the perfect tree. It’s fluffy and bouncy and surprisingly light. We drag it home laughing and kissing, elated to be alive.
Of course, life doesn’t always imitate art.
Todd and I settled on a Monday night in mid-December to purchase our tree. I was running late. Between the gym and the supermarket it was 7 p.m. before I even got home. While I had imagined eating heaping bowls of linguini illuminated by the lights on our aromatic pine, Todd was starving and wanted to grab a slice of pizza before we began shopping.
Immediately upon exiting the pizza parlor, the precipitation began. Unfortunately, it didn’t take the form of poetic snowflakes. They were obstreperous rain pellets destined to muddy the roads and ruin my hair. Nonetheless, Todd and I forged on.
We started with the vendor outside Gourmet Garage on Seventh Avenue and Christopher Street, a tree hut manned by an affable Nova Scotian. Unfortunately, Todd and I are a Christmas tree vendor’s worst nightmare. An introspective Presbyterian with a strong background in architecture and design accompanied by a New Jersey Jew will never, under any circumstance, settle on the first tree they see. After asking the affable Nova Scotian to unwrap several trees, we decided to do a little comparison shopping and headed to a vendor on Hudson Street.
“I’ve never had a Christmas tree before,” I told the friendly Canadian who was asking $65 for a scrawny tree that wasn’t nearly as nice as the pine the affable Nova Scotian was selling for $40.
“But I’m an old pro,” Todd piped in, clearly annoyed that I would blithely reveal my inexperience, giving the friendly Canadian the upper hand in our negotiations.
Todd went on to scrutinize more trees while I, ignoring his tacit reproach – we were buying a Christmas tree, not a used car – chatted with the friendly Canadian. I learned that he is from Ontario, his vending station is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and that he works the 12-hour night shift from 7 p.m. to 7a.m. None of that seemed to affect Todd, who showed no signs of guilt when we departed the Ontarian’s site tree free.
By this point the obstreperous rain pellets had turned into a maddening mist and Todd seemed edgy, particularly when the affable Nova Scotian smiled and waved as we passed his hut in search of a vendor on Sixth Avenue.
When it comes to Christmas tree shopping, Todd and I quickly learned that three times is not necessarily a charm. Neither affable nor friendly, our Sixth Avenue vendor was a terse Quebecois who was not about to unwrap every tree in his stock to satisfy the whims of an ambivalent couple. He almost laughed when Todd tried to haggle down the price of a lean Douglas fir.
I followed Todd back to vendor number one.
“He’s got us right where he wants us,” Todd whispered as we approached the hut. “So don’t show him we’re desperate.”
As expected, the affable Nova Scotian greeted us affably. “Look over here,” he said pointing to the first pine we saw. “The tree I opened up for you guys earlier tonight is really filling out nicely.” Having been watered and arranged on a stand, the pine actually looked pretty good – well, good in a very Charlie-Brown-Christmas-tree kind of way.
“It’s really cute,” I said.
But Todd wasn’t ready to concede. He had the affable Nova Scotian show us several more trees before he handed over the money.
The rain picked up, the temperatures were dropping and neither of us was in the mood for laughing or kissing. Nonetheless, I was elated to be alive as Todd hauled my first fluffy, bouncy and surprisingly heavy $40 Christmas tree all the way home.