Linus van Pelt said it best: “I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It’s not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.”

It’s the famed line from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” that looped over and over in my head before taking up my temporary day job at the nameless tree stand on the corner of River Road and East Main Street in Norwich. For approximately five weeks of the year, the normally vacant lot near the corner is transformed into a Christmas tree wonderland with pines shipped to Chenango County from as far south as Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Tree salesman Frank Lananna runs the stand. It’s a long day that calls for long hours, he said. He manages the stand on a daily basis after working his regular job on a dairy farm in Oxford and more often than not, Lananna keeps lights on as late as 8:30 p.m., well after the end of the regular work day.

I reported for work on a Friday afternoon, just as a customer drove off the lot with one hand on the wheel, the other frantically grasping the branches of a seven-foot pine tree strapped to the roof of his car. A cold December rain was averting customers, said Lananna, who just sold his fifth tree of the day. It was a relatively slow day in what would otherwise be one of the most taxing times of the season.

“When it’s raining, people just don’t have any desire to go out and pick out a Christmas tree,” Lananna told me, “but when it’s more seasonable, sometimes I get lines with as many as 15 people at time. When you’re just one person, it can get a little crazy.”

Yet Lananna keeps pace with the craziness. Nearly 100 of the original 250 trees on the lot have been sold thus far, he said. “Most years, I’m able to sell all the trees I have here ... Last year, we had that freak weather and trees were cut late,” he added, noting that last year’s uncommonly warm weather slowed sales and put him behind in business. “If you cut them when it’s too warm, the wood splits. They have to be cold to have a good cut.”