Christmas Trees Already In High Demand With New Yorkers Eager To Bring Home Some Holiday Cheer
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Because of the pandemic, some people are eager to get an early start on holiday decorations.
Christmas trees were cut, wrapped with netting and handed off to those eager to get into the holiday spirit the day after Thanksgiving.
"This year has been so depressing," Tom Gaglio said.
Gaglio and Shawn Mazur stopped by NYC Trees in Hell's Kitchen. They say with everything going on in the world, they just wanted to get a jumpstart on decorating.
"The earlier the better this year," Gaglio said.
"Putting it up in the apartment and decorating it, it always just brings a little bit of happiness," Mazur said.
Harold Delicia owns NYC Trees. He says he delivered over 160 trees and sold more than 70 of them to people stopping by, all in a day's work.
It's an unusual trend for someone who has been in the business for about a decade.
"People are coming out to buy the trees very early this year," Delicia said. "I actually have to try to go resource more trees for people who are buying them online because we are selling so many here at the stand."
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Dimitri Gatanas, the owner at Urban Garden Center in Harlem, says in comparison to this time last year, his sales are up 50%, selling about 100 trees in just one day.
"The last time we experienced sales like this, it really was at 9/11," Gatanas said. "We found that when people are down, this uplifts them in a lot of ways ... People are yearning, you know, like, they're looking for this comfort of Christmas."
That's especially true for little kids, like Savannah and Olivia Hernandez. The 5-year-old twin girls spent Friday evening picking out their perfect tree with their father, Chris.
"Are you excited about the Christmas tree? Why are you excited?" CBS2's Cory James asked.
"Decorating it," Savannah said.
"We get home and see our Christmas tree lit up, and it brings a little joy to everybody," Chris Hernandez said.
That joy was shown on his daughters' faces after they got home and put lights around their tree in their holiday pajamas.
It was an uplifting moment filled with excitement as they prepare to say merry Christmas and happy holidays during a pandemic.
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