“Growing up, my family owned and operated a Christmas tree nursery. For us, Christmas usually started the day after Thanksgiving. This is when we headed over to the nursery and were met by a tractor trailer loaded with 500 freshly-cut Christmas trees. Our family would spend the day (and several other days each Christmas season) unloading, drilling, and putting trees on the stands. In the beginning years, I was small, and my job was to cut open the trees, which were wrapped in twine for tight packing. However, as soon as I was big enough, I was moving trees… lots of trees. My family and I would spend most weekends in December at the nursery. I started as an apple cider and cookie stocker and twine collector, and eventually, as I grew, would be baling and
securing trees on cars.”