Season

You choose a day in late November or early December. After that there is nothing you need to do.

The view into a dark living room from the doorway, a wall edge closing off the left of the frame. The lit tree stands small against the far wall, a floor lamp glows beyond it, and a low sofa runs along night windows at the right.

Late November

We come on the day you chose. The tree goes up the freight elevator and into the corner you told us about, and we style it there — the ornaments, the collar, the star, the light. Everything we carried in that isn’t the tree goes back out with us: the wrapping, the boxes it travelled in, the ladder, the packing under the collar. The corner is swept before we leave it. Then the afternoon goes dark and it’s the only thing on in the room.

A lit tree beside floor-to-ceiling glass at dusk, its champagne and mercury glass ornaments and gold star warm against a deep blue sky. The city is lit below, and the tree appears again, fainter, in the reflection.

December

December is the easy part. It is simply there, glowing when you walk in, asking nothing of you. It is there on the ordinary Tuesdays too, when the rain is on the window and nobody is coming over. Some evenings you’ll notice it and some evenings you won’t.

January

We come back and take care of it, and everything goes with us.

What you’ll hear from us

You choose a day, not a window, so nobody spends it waiting on us. You’ll hear from us once the week before, so you know the day is still the day, and once on the day itself to say it’s finished. Nothing in between, because there’s nothing you’d need.

That’s the whole of it.

Choose a tree