There is a particular New York feeling that comes about four minutes after you buy a Christmas tree on the sidewalk.
The tree is yours. It is also eight feet long, it weighs more than it looked like it weighed, and it is now entirely your problem. Four blocks, a lobby, an elevator you are not supposed to use for this, and three flights.
Sixteen seasons ago we decided that part was the actual business.
What comes with the tree
Every tree we deliver arrives with all of this, and none of it is a line item:
- Delivery. No fee, anywhere we serve. By bicycle, which is how we have always done it.
- Setup. We stand it up, straight, in the spot you point at.
- The stand. Included. Not an upsell, not a $49 add-on.
- Stairs. Every flight. However many. There is no walk-up fee and no per-floor fee.
- A certificate of insurance for your co-op or doorman building, free, whenever your management office asks for one.
That is not a promotion. There is no version of this where those things cost extra later.
The two nobody warns you about
Stairs. New York is a walk-up city and a tree is an awkward object. Some sellers price that by the flight, some quietly decline the sixth floor. We are a bicycle delivery company. Stairs were never going to be an add-on for us.
The COI. Most doorman buildings and co-ops require a certificate of insurance naming the building before a delivery crew gets past the lobby. It is the single most common reason a tree ends up parked with a doorman while somebody makes phone calls. Other companies in this city charge for it. We issue it free, same day, if you send us your building’s requirements.
Ask your management office in November, not on the day. They are not fast in December.
So what does it cost
A six-foot Fraser fir, delivered, carried up, standing straight in a stand in your living room, is $239, and there is nothing added to that.
Smaller trees cost less and bigger ones cost more, right up to the fourteen-footers that go into church sanctuaries and lobbies. Every size is priced on our shop page, plainly, before you put anything in a cart. Above thirteen feet we quote it on the phone, because those trees deserve an actual conversation.
What we do not do
We do not run sales. No pre-season discount, no coupon code, no markdown week to wait for.
The season is thirty-four days long and we sell out of most sizes. A discount is just a way of telling the person who bought on opening day that they paid too much. We would rather price it right once.
The part that is not on the invoice
We pick every tree ourselves. Joseph and Ed drive south each November, load them at the farms, and haul them back into Manhattan. Then a dozen actors, musicians, and performers spend a week turning a church parking lot in the East Village into a small lit forest, and a month standing in it in the cold, being glad to see you.
You can come stand in it too. St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, 131 E 10th Street at 2nd Avenue, November 21 through Christmas Eve.
Or book a delivery and we will bring the whole thing to your door. Stairs included.
Related: How to care for your Christmas tree and keep it fresh all season