Christmas Tree Lots: Who Are The Folks Who Keep The Season Bright?

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2016

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pop-up tree lots sprout up on every Chicago corner during the holiday season, only to disappear. Who are the people who make these happen and what's the business like? As one operator says it, "It’s fast, it’s furious and it’s over in about three and a half weeks."

Transcript

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0:00.0	When we're the...
0:03.2	Where's that? Where's that story?
0:07.6	It's Curious City.
0:08.7	Where WBEZ answers your questions about Chicago, the region, and its people.
0:14.1	Ho, ho, ho. I'm WBEZ reporter Monica Eng.
0:17.6	And if you're like me, you may be super busy these days, trying to tackle presents,
0:22.2	greeting cards, holiday lights, making organic fruitcake and canning the Christmas sourcrow.
0:28.3	Oh yeah, and the tree. That's what our latest questions about. See, Jessica Tancy was running
0:34.2	errands on Thanksgiving weekend when she saw a bunch of different little
0:38.5	Christmas tree pop-up shops, I guess you would call them, and just kind of got to wondering,
0:43.6	how many trees do they sell a day, a week? How do people get into the business? Where are they
0:49.8	coming from? What keeps them in it? What's hard? what's great, just kind of wondering all the things
0:54.7	about it and who the people are behind it and what their stories are.
0:58.4	Wow, that's a lot of questions.
1:00.9	But we'll need to get this done by Christmas.
1:03.6	So I'll zero in on just that last part.
1:06.5	Who are these folks selling trees?
1:08.8	We'll hear from a few of these characters who work in the biz.
1:11.7	Each got into this whole Christmas tree racket for different reasons, and you'd be surprised
1:16.6	at where their trees come from, where they come from, and how much money they can make.
1:23.4	Okay, we have just a few days to figure this out, and that Christmas sauerkraut isn't going to can itself.
1:29.8	So right away, I meet up with questioner Jessica at a piney-smelling Wrigleyville lot.
	...

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