The “Tree Lady” Is Hustling All Year, Not Just at Christmas Time

It’s that time of year when twinkling lights blanket New York City. They’re wrapped around lamp posts, drape over streets as cars drive beneath them. On the corner of Greenwich Ave and 7th Ave, one native New Yorker is on the phone, pacing up and down the street, “Where did you go? I have your trees for you,” she says.

A white U-Haul arrives. Then another. Heather Neville, AKA “the NYC Christmas Tree Lady,” opens the doors and climbs into the back. She picks up pine trees, all about 5 feet tall, and drops them on the street. Her employees reload them into the other truck.

They’re going out for deliveries or dropping them off at Neville’s other Christmas Tree stand on 96th and Lexington Ave.

Neville has always been a hustler. She was around 20 years old when she started working for SOHO trees, a Christmas tree chain in Manhattan. It’s a male dominated industry, Neville said. Women weren’t hired to work with trees, which can weigh 50 to 70 pounds. They were typically only hired to do wreaths, which hardly weigh more than 5 pounds. But Neville knew she could do more, and decided to branch out on her own– pun intended. Now she runs seven tree stands all over the city.

Her trees arrive a few days before Thanksgiving, but this was from the load they get half way through the season, Neville’s husband, Dave said. The Christmas tree business is Neville’s. Dave has his own business, repairing roofs. Its seasonal work too, and now that’s it’s colder he helps his wife with the Christmas trees.

“Truth be told, he just can’t live without me,” Neville said, laughing. “What the hell would he do all day long?”

The Christmas tree market in New York City is unlike other places. While most trees are picked up at farms or nurseries, in the month leading up to Christmas, NYC’s sidewalks are strewn with trees. Neville’s trees are about double the price of the ones outside the city. They range from $100 (for a tree that’s about 4 feet) to over $1,500 (for 16-footer). In upstate New York, one hundred dollars gets you an 8-foot Christmas tree.

While she accepts that bargaining comes with the territory, she adds that society doesn’t value hard working people. “You have no problem spending–getting f*****g ripped off for a designer bag.”

But Neville loves the hustle of the Christmas tree business. “It’s not a job for everybody, like 100 percent not a job for everybody,” she said as she drove from one of her stands to the next one. Neville checks on her stands at least twice a day, making sure her employees are selling trees, picking up money if she needs to, and checking that trees have been delivered.

It’s no question Neville loves the hard work, that’s clear from the dirt under her nails. Selling Christmas trees is different from any other kind of business, she said. “Just the hustle and grind, and like, the types of people that you encounter, you know, it’s a little bit more nitty gritty.”

She’s the first woman to own a parks’ permit in NYC for her business, she said. Even as a pioneering woman in a male dominated industry, Neville doesn’t make a point of hiring women. She cares more about hiring people who have the same tenacity that she has.

She also said she tries to hire folks who need the support during the holiday season, particularly people who may not find a job elsewhere. That’s what she loves most about her Christmas trees.

“My whole thing is like, we live in this world, and people don’t take the time to care about each other, and they don’t,” she said. “So, like this Christmas tree, really, it’s just my time to like care about people that don’t get the love and support that they need.”

Neville says she cares for her staff in all her businesses. When she isn’t selling Christmas trees, she’s selling hot sauce and exotic meats on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ. She also owns a gourmet grocery store in New Jersey. Although, she said she’s not making money in the food store, she keeps it open to pay her staff. “I’m happy as long as my staff are paid.” Neville’s no different with her Christmas trees.

Every year she gets a new crew looking to help and make a buck during the season. She calls them her “Christmas tree children.” Sometimes employees return. Like “AZ” for instance, who came back for a second year. He likes to be outside, he said. “I like seeing the chaos, I like seeing the miscreants walking by. I like seeing the street fights and the arguments.” Last year, he worked the nightshift at Neville’s stand on 96th and Lexington Ave. “The brutalest cold you could ever imagine.”

AZ, who said he spent nine years in prison, said New York City is filled with frauds, and “people with ulterior motives, who are judgmental.” That’s why he likes working with Neville.

“Heather is probably one of the most straight up f*****g people I’ve met. Straight up. That’s what I like. No filter. No remorse, no regrets, no bullshit. She’s not Willy Wonka. She’s going to give it to you raw, you either love it or hate it. But you have to respect it,” he said.

“If you take the time to figure out what’s going on with somebody, maybe would, you know, like, just. You don’t know. You don’t know people’s walks,” Neville said.

Neville recalls a time when she did not have her life figured out yet; no clear career, in between jobs. “I know because like when I started doing this, I was pretty unstable, you know?” she said.

“So, we have like a little Christmas family and, you know, any one of them, any one of my staff can call me any time of year if they needed something, I would say yes.”

Peter Crosby returned for a second year, too. He said Neville can be tough, but she’s always reliable. She doesn’t tolerate when her staff shows up late, and she’ll fire you if you steal anything from her.

“She takes care of you. If you do the right thing,” he said. “You could talk to her about anything, you know tell her your problems that you have and, uh, she’ll give you good advice. She’ll give great advice. She has an amazing heart.”

“Heather’s been through her own problems, just like everybody else in the world. But she was able to overcome it and be a successful businesswoman and she kind of gives knowledge, she kicks knowledge to us and lets us know, you know, how we can be successful,” Crosby said.

During our drive, Neville said, “It’s giving yourself to somebody else. And people are less likely to do that, you know.” In that moment, a mini red pick-up truck drove by with a tree in its trunk. “A white pine, really? Where the hell is that going?” she said, laughing.

Neville lives and breathes Christmas trees. Although the business opens the day after Thanksgiving and closes Christmas Eve, planning and preparations, begin early on in the year. “I’m thinking about Christmas trees in July. You have to order your trees early or you don’t get trees, or you don’t get good ones at least,” she said.

Unlike her business on the boardwalk, which opens in March and doesn’t close until October, the Christmas trees business is fast-paced. “There’s no wiggle room, there’s no room for error,” she said.

Neville gets her trees from different farmers; some trees come from Pennsylvania, some from North Carolina. Usually, she doesn’t know what she’ll get since the growers don’t know what will be available for the winter. By June, she calls in to order her trees, all the while running Goodies Gone Wild–her business on the boardwalk in Ocean City. She always goes up to the farms to check out her trees first, before having them delivered to the city.

Then, she has to deal with ordering tree stands and anything else that was thrown out by the end of the last season. Once Christmas is over, Neville celebrates with a trip to Mexico.

Neville even provides a decorating service, although she never understood how people could be too busy to decorate their trees themselves. As she put it, “Decorate your own fucking tree.”