BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

They are moving.”

Melody Houle takes a drag of her cigarette, which she’s lit off a Bic that hangs upside down from a string around her neck. She’s standing in one of those neglected lots you find all over the outer boroughs of New York City, muddy and uneven, strung with random wires of obscure purpose and littered with rusted detritus. And the fact that these unlovely things have been made visible is a source of triumph for the Houles. It means the trees that hid them even a week ago are selling. By Saturday, December 10, there are only 70 left, down from 300. They are moving

A father walks into the lot with a boy slumped on his shoulders. He looks around and zeroes in on a tree. A fat seven-footer.

“What do you think?” he says.

The kid slumps further.

“You’re indifferent,” the father says. They keep looking.

The lot is behind a craft shop on Cortelyou Road in Ditmas Park in Brooklyn. It’s a neighborhood best known for its stock of what locals call “detached houses”—recognized outside New York City as simply “houses”—but there are attached apartment buildings and attached townhouses and attached everything elses, too. Ditmas Park is gentrifying, as the wave of money surges ever eastward across the Borough of Churches, but it remains a diverse place. The Houles’ stand is a stone’s throw from a guitar shop, a check-cashing operation, a hip restaurant, an Islamic school, a Pilates studio, a Mexican diner, a Dominican hair salon, and Shabuj Grocery, which advertises itself as “Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani & American,” and under whose awning passes a family of Hasidic Jews out for a Saturday stroll.

This is a perfect lot, Melody says. The stone walls on two sides keep the trees cool, and the moist dirt keeps them hydrated. And the gate locks, which means she and Patrick can go back to their Airbnb at the end of every night and not have to worry about whether any stock will go missing. Despite the native condition of the lot, it’s festive, heavy with pine scent.

A couple step in and look around. Cassidy and Adam. They’ve just moved in together. Last year it was only Adam, his cat, and a small Christmas tree. “Every time I came home, the tree was on the floor,” he says. This year, with Cassidy’s two cats in the mix, the threat is multiplied. “I saw a YouTube video of cats fighting Christmas trees,” Adam says. “So I’m pretty excited. It’s a new adventure for them.”

“I’m so excited,” says Cassidy.

Ditmas Park has a robust Jewish population, and Melody reports that she’s been seeing more mixed couples coming in since last year. Adam and Cassidy are one of those.

“He’s pretty new to Christmas,” she says.

“I’m Jewish,” he says. “I was raised Orthodox.”

“So we’ve been doing Christmas stuff,” she says. Getting a tree, watching Christmas movies, getting tickets to Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall.

“It’s pretty immersive,” he says. “All the Looney Tunes parodies make sense now.”

They buy a six-footer for $60.

Not everything is for sale back here. Melody maintains a small tin of coins and stickers (Christian- and Jewishthemed) for the kids. “Something for everybody,” she says. There is also a tree decked with little silver sachets full of pine needles. “Sometimes you can tell that somebody needs their day brightened,” Melody explains. “You hand them one of those, and they get teary-eyed. That’s what it’s all about.”

There are also three gnarled, patchy little trees—“Charlie Brown trees,” Patrick says—propped up by the entryway in a couple of cinder blocks. One sold yesterday to a young woman. She didn’t have room for a proper tree. “She wanted a bit of the Christmas spirit, and that was the one for her,” he says.

Another father stands before a seven-footer on the corner.

“How much is this?”

“Seventy,” Melody says.

“Well … I only have 60.”

“We take cards.”

The man deflates slightly, his hopes of bringing home both a tree and a tale of successful bartering dashed, and slinks off to the six-footers. He finds a suitable specimen and turns to his daughter, who is wearing a long red knit cap.

“What do you think, June?” he says.

“I like this tree,” she replies. Then she peers curiously at Patrick. “Who is this one?”

“That’s Patrick,” says Melody, offering June a treat from her tin box. “My husband.”

Off they go. Patrick grabs a tree and lays it on the table. “Let’s give this one a haircut,” he says and grabs the chainsaw. Melody is chatting with a customer, and her hand rests a few inches from where Patrick is going to cut. He takes it and gently places it safely away from the blade.

“They’re selling fast,” Melody is saying. She thinks people are getting them earlier this year because they know these trees will last. “They know the secret sauce works.”

The secret sauce, by the way, is Sprite and bottled water. Not city water, which contains chloride. One customer after another attests to its potency. One woman, Hyacinth, says her tree lived well into the spring last year, remaining fully decorated. Finally a friend told her, “Get rid of the Christmas tree! I can’t stand it! It’s March !” She consented, she says, but not without some regret.

In roister two boys, clad in parkas, caps, and scarves, singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” With them is their mother and a small girl in a white cat hat with a fresh tear on her cheek. They get a six-footer. The boys are determined to carry it home. The mother is skeptical but willing to give them a shot (if only, she confides, because it might be hilarious). Patrick ties it up, and the boys grab it roughly and set to dragging it out. Their sister, meanwhile, is nowhere to be seen.

A faint voice sounds from the other side of the gate.

“Mama, I don’t want to get hurt,” the voice says.

“I don’t want you to get hurt, either,” says her mother.

“I don’t want to get hurt by a Christmas tree,” the girl says.

“Then stay out of the way!”

More customers, more trees. Men, women, straight, gay, black, white, young, middle-aged. People who went too big last year and touched the ceiling, people harboring regrets at not getting close enough to the ceiling. Most are repeat customers, because of the trees and the Houles. “They’re very natural and authentic,” one says. “It’s not about business. It’s about making sure you have the cheeriest Christmas.” Another tells the Houles, “I always get them from here, and I love you guys, and they’re perfect.”

“It’s the secret sauce,” Melody tells him.

They are moving. At this rate, they’ll sell out by the 11th or 12th, a week and a half earlier than usual. “Maybe we’ll have time to actually see the sights,” Melody says. “We’ve never done it. Patrick wants to see the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero.”

“We don’t get to see it unless it’s on TV, and it’s never the same,” he says. He also wants a dirty-water hot dog.

A severe and studious-looking middle-aged man enters, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, a black coat, and an air of purpose. “I’m looking for a nine and a half,” he says, “and the girth can’t be—”

“Not too big?” says Patrick. He shows him a tree.

“Do you have anything just like it, but a foot taller? Sorry: difficult customer.”

Patrick pulls out a bigger one.

“I like this one,” the man says. “Unless you have one taller.”

Patrick produces one taller.

“That’s too tall,” the man says. He returns to the previous one and starts nodding. “I love this one,” he says, finally. “That’s the one. That’s the one.” It’s a $90 tree, but he has only $70. He gives them what he has as a down payment, and says his partner will come with the rest.

“Pardon me,” he says. “I need to call for help.”

He rushes out, and the Houles laugh and kiss in the lot. Five minutes later a head peeks through the gate: “Hello? There’s a crazy man here who just bought a tree?”

Another sale, another young couple. Melody asks the buyers if they remember about the watering.

“Oh, we need Sprite, don’t we?” the young woman says. As Patrick ties up the tree, she says, “We didn’t think you’d be back this year.”

“We’re tryin’,” says Melody.

A tree is selected by Ken, a painter. A repeat customer. But when Patrick gets the tree on the table, he notices the trunk is crooked and suggests Ken pick another one. While he does, Patrick discards the crooked one in the corner. Ken settles on a non-crooked tree—to be picked up Sunday—and says, “See you tomorrow, my friends!” Then he turns to a stranger and indicates the dwindling stock on the lot: “I hope it brings them…” and he makes a concerned gesture that can only be read as overdue good fortune. “They’re sweet,” Ken explains.

They are moving.

“This is our best year yet,” Melody says. “I hope we’re on a roll.”

A French florist comes in. She complains that all her customers in town are incredibly demanding, and all the trees her firm bought to sell them this year are thin. It’s been a nightmare. “I’m a little less difficult on my own tree,” she explains. “I just want to throw some lights on and call it a day. It’s the spirit of the season, not whether it’s perfect.”

“It’s Mother Nature,” Patrick says. “It’s not a perfect world.”

Of course, now someone else wants the crooked tree. A pretty 20something with bangs and an olive parka has found it. Melanie. Her boyfriend, Ron, in a leather jacket, hoodie, and sunglasses, is less enthusiastic. “You’re stuck on this one,” he tells her.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I just like him. He’s special because he’s crooked.” She thinks about it. “And probably because they’re telling me we shouldn’t have him.”

They buy him.

“You remember how to water?”

Melody says.

Off they go.

“Not many Mohicans left, huh?” Patrick says.

Who knows, Melody says. They might even sell out tomorrow.

“It’s a big blessing,” says Patrick.

“We get to enjoy New York.”

“It’ll be different,” Melody says.

Later, as Patrick is away feeding the meter, she takes a smoke break. “It might be a honeymoon,” she says. “We never had a chance to do that, either.”

The next young family, repeat customers, have brought their own dolly with them. The mother’s name is Kelly. Her father bought the dolly for them, she says. Kelly asks Melody where their Airbnb is, and they get into Airbnb war stories, as people do. Kelly tells her that her father got an Airbnb last time he was in town, but the ceiling was so low he kept hitting his head on the pipes. “So he went out and bought a bike helmet,” she says. “He’s a little kooky.”

It has started to snow. The December chill sinks in as dusk approaches. Kelly and her family load the tree onto the dolly and turn to go. Before they do, Melody gives Kelly a big hug. “Byebye, dear,” she says. “Have a merry Christmas.” They go.

A minute later, one of the kids returns and gives Melody a five.

“Thank you so much,” he says.

On a damp, cool Monday afternoon, there’s only one tree left, and it’s been leaning against the dirty white wall for hours. Even the last crabbed little Charlie Brown tree is gone, claimed by “a little boy so happy to have his own tree it wasn’t funny,”

Patrick says. The hours crawl by. It closes in on 3 o’clock. “It’s time for you to take it out to the street and dance with it,” Patrick suggests.

“I suppose you could put it out front with a sign that says ‘Last Tree,’” says Melody.

They carry it out to the sidewalk and lean it against a bike rack. Patrick waits in the car. His hip is bothering him. At about 4 p.m., a friendly couple come by. Alec Betterley, a music therapist, and Nicole Lenzen, a nurse. They are newlyweds—this is their first married Christmas—and they just returned this afternoon from Texas, where they visited his mother. They’re tired, they’re busy—this is their only day off, which means it’s the only chance they’ll have to buy a tree—and buying a tree, for these two, is usually fraught. “It’s actually one of our most argument-prone days,” says Alec.

“We have a hard time picking a Christmas tree,” says Nicole.

Not this year. This year, peace will reign. There are no choices. There’s just the one. A lovely seven-footer. They pay out on the sidewalk and chat with the Houles. But it’s getting cold, and it’s getting toward night. Patrick and Melody congratulate the couple and wish them a merry Christmas. As they all prepare to part ways, only one