Dec. 16, 2020
Diana Karvelis spent 15 minutes choosing just the right Christmas tree a five-footer that cost $65 at a stand in the East Village on a freezing weekday night.
“In the past it’s been a ‘nice to have,’ now it’s a ‘need to have,’” she said.
Ms. Karvelis, who was laid off from her job and moved to a new apartment in the midst of the pandemic, said that in a year when she could not see her family in person, the experience reminded her of cutting down a Christmas tree while growing up outside Detroit.
She is one of many New Yorkers searching for comfort in conifers, clamoring for Christmas trees as balms of normalcy in the middle of a pandemic that has turned everyone’s life upside down.