For one month each year, Christmas tree stands bring the holiday spirit to sidewalks across the city. But those trees don't just appear. It takes a lot of work to bring them here - some from far off places. Our Michael Scotto followed one tree, whose life began 10 years ago and 155 miles away:  

The city's pop-up forests appear like clockwork every Thanksgiving. Sidewalk stands selling so many Christmas trees.

But getting the trees into living rooms across the big city is something of a Christmas Miracle: A 10-year journey that begins in distant places like Mill Grove, Pa.

We followed one tree, to see that journey unfold.

For the last 44 years, Alan Sutton has been growing and cutting down the trees that end up in New York apartments.

“I started when I was 15 and now I'm 59,” he says.

In the weeks before Christmas, it's a good idea to stand clear of his chainsaw.

In matter of minutes, Sutton can clear a field.

As he's taking them down, he says he often thinks about where his trees end up.

“It's just amazing to see the people that walk up and down that sidewalk stop and enjoy your tree. I'm thinking it was mine.”

On this day, he’s cutting down about 300 trees, including a 10-foot Douglas Fir planted about a decade ago, and baling them to hold down their branches during shipping.

It's a tough business..

“They’re just like children, little kids. They take a lot of care,” Sutton says.

...a lot of work,for a shrinking payoff.

Artificial Christmas trees are growing in popularity. And big chains like Home Depot have muscled into the business, buying trees at low prices from huge farms in places like Oregon and Michigan.

Small growers like Sutton are getting hammered.

“They ship them in and they buy them by the hundreds of thousands. And they buy them early. And that's what's ruined the market,” Sutton says.

Ten years ago, Sutton grew Christmas trees on 70 percent of his 100-acre farm; now, just 25 percent.

But this year, Sutton says, business has been good.

Many farmers cut back on planting during the Great Recession - creating a smaller harvest this fall, sending prices higher.

That Douglas Fir... and the 300 other trees cut down along with it, are loaded up and trucked out of Pennsylvania on Interstate 80 for the three-hour trip to Manhattan… arriving in Manhattan’s East Village, on a snowy, Christmas-like day.

Joseph Schommer has run the same stand in the East Village since 2011. He now lives in California, but every November, he returns to sell trees. A drawing card -- his trees are relatively local.

“The huge farms that I have worked with in the past have been such terrible experiences - it's get them in, get them out,” Schommer says.

Just 25 hours after it is harvested, our ten-foot Douglas Fir is on display, its evergreen scent still so fresh.

Architect David Snowdon-Jones lives a block and a half from this stand. He takes an immediate liking to our tree.

“First tree, this is the one,” he says.

He pays $160 dollars. Just 52 hours after it is cut down, the tree is in his apartment....ready for ornaments.

To Snowdon-Jones... it's a simple transaction.

“I generally don't think where they come from,” he says.

But Sutton wants his customers to know that the tree business is a labor of love.

Even though everyone is having a good time, you know, enjoying the holiday stuff, they're probably not realizing how much time and workmanship that went into them to get them to that point.

Time and work, to help New Yorkers get into the Christmas spirit.