For their honeymoon, Rachael Gammon and James Marcus drove thousands of miles to the Upper West Side, where they’ve been sleeping in a cold van for weeks.
The Alaskan newlyweds use a bathroom at CVS, shower at a gym and spend 16 hours a day shivering on a sidewalk, sometimes in the rain — and they love it.
The couple belongs to a rare crop of seasonal workers — dubbed “Tree Men” — who have trekked to the city from all over the world to cash in on Christmas and spread some joy on the mean streets of New York.
“We’re selling cheer,” said Marcus, 33, who arrived with his wife in the Big Apple two days before Thanksgiving. “We drove 9,000 miles in six weeks to get here. It’s been an epic adventure.”
But the work itself can be tougher than tree bark.
The vendors sleep for weeks in trucks and vans near stands of $50-$1,000 firs, which must be manned 24-hours a day to prevent theft.
They work long cold hours outside, selling trees shipped in from farms in Canada and North Carolina.
At the end of the month, most of them earn $2,000-$6,000, working as subcontractors for local companies.
But Gammon and Marcus swear they aren’t in it for the cash.
“Really, it’s more of just an adventure — as long as we end up in the black, somehow, we’re happy,” Marcus, 33, said.
The couple, from Juneau, Alaska got married at music festival near Palm Springs, California in October then set out out on a cross-country journey that ended with selling trees in the city.
“We spent the money we would have used on a wedding traveling 9,000 miles across the country,” Gammon, 29, said.
“We get to be six-week New Yorkers.”
They sell Fraser firs for $20 a foot on Amsterdam Avenue and West 86th Street in the The Upper West Side.
“Friends were like, ‘Watch out. New Yorkers are not that nice,’” Marcus said. “Maybe it’s the perspective of selling Christmas trees— but I have not had anybody rude at all.”
Selling trees is a breath of fresh air for Will Palmer, who signed up for the gig after falling out of love with the tech world.
The 18-year-old North Carolina native graduated from high school by age 15 and launched a cyber security firm — but things went downhill in college, he said.
“I made too much money for a young kid to have. I don’t think anybody that age can be responsible,” he said of his time partying at University of California at Santa Barbara.
He left the school last year and worked briefly for an opioid replacement therapy clinic in Nashville.
A month ago, he quit the job, left nearly all of his belongings behind and hitch-hiked to Connecticut before taking a train to the Big Apple, where he sells trees on Sixth Avenue and Dominick Street in the West Village.
Now, he sleeps in a small camper with two other Tree Men. The hard, honest work brings him joy, he said. “It’s madness and loveliness at the same time,” he said.
He’s not sure what to do after Christmas, he said. “I still haven’t hopped a freight train.”
Elizabeth Gagnon lives in the Canadian countryside most of the year — so she loves the culture shock that comes with delivering trees to New York apartments.
“I don’t live in the city, so it’s fun to be here for a month, meeting lots of people, delivering to their fancy apartments,” said Gagnon, 24,who works at a stand on 51st Street and Eight Avenue in Hells Kitchen and has seen some breathtaking abodes.
“I saw the penthouse of a 40-level building, with a view on the river. Everything is so clean and white, a lot of white,” said Gagnon, who charges $20 a foot per tree.
Her longtime friend, JP, takes the night shift while she works days. Staying awake is the hardest part.
“I wake up really early, at 5 in the morning. And you have not much to do. You have many, many hours to wait,” said Gannon. After a couple weeks, she’s already channeling her inner New Yorker: “I drink a lot of coffee,” she said.
John Nilsson signed up to sell Christmas trees 26 years ago. The 65-year-old Swedish nurse’s 35-year-old son, Marcus, followed in his footsteps eleven years later — and the duo now meets in the Big Apple every November.
“I live in Stockholm, my father lives in Helsingborg. It’s like a 6 or 7 hour drive. Every year, I meet my father in New York. I spend my time with him for like four weeks every year in the city,” said Marcus, who left his kids at home to make the journey. “I do it for the the experience and time with my father,” he said of their stand on East 84th Street and Third Avenue on the Upper East Side.
They sell Balsam firs from Nova Scotia and Fraser firs from North Carolina on East 84th Street and Third Avenue on the Upper East Side.
When they bring their paychecks home, they cash in on the Euro-to-dollar exchange.
It’s rewarding to bring a slice of the forest to the concrete jungle, where the locals have no interest getting their hands dirty, said Dan Felicetti, 29, from Hartland, Vermont.
“There’s concrete everywhere here. Bringing trees from where I’m from, the hills from Vermont, where it’s natural, it’s kind of a big deal,” Felicetti, a manager who works 12-hour days selling trees from a farms in Vermont and Canada.
Felicetti, who sells trees on East 66th and Third Avenue in the Upper East Side, said he rarely meets New Yorkers who want to work the gig.
“This job is not a New York kind of thing, to be carrying trees on your shoulder and getting dirty. I’ve got tree sap on my hands… It’s hard work,” he said, adding his shift begins at 4:30 a.m.
In past years, he earned most of his annual income on the job, he said. “It just gives me the freedom I want,” he said.
Jan Bouthillier hit the road after graduating from college with a degree in biology and stumbled onto the job.
“I just finished my bachelors. I’m just having a year off, so I’ve been traveling,” said Bouthillier, 26, of Montreal, who saw an ad for the job.
For weeks, she has been sleeping in a camper covered in Christmas lights on East 23rd Street and Second Avenue in Gramercy Park with her boyfriend, Travis.
Avoiding parking tickets can be a headache, she said.
“We got one ticket because there were complaints. Sometimes [vendors] have to change the sides of the streets,” she said.
Before rolling into New York, the couple planted trees and picked grapes for a winery in British Columbia.
Next, they plan to pick fruit in Mexico.
“We’re going south —where it’s warm,” she said