Well, it’s that time of year. In lieu of writing something new about Christmas (hello, who has time?), I’ll just refer you to this piece I wrote about the Christmas tree boys for Salon a few years ago.

It’s December now, and the Christmas tree industry’s booming, and I just can’t get my mind around shopping and party hopping, Johnny Mathis and candy canes and marshmallows by the fire. This time of year, I can’t seem to think about anything but that most spectacular of species, the Christmas Tree Boy — that erotic masterpiece, with his athletic swagger, his quick grin, thumbs hooked through his belt loops as he guides customers through the mysteries of Christmas tree buying.

For one blissful month, I see these tall firm boys everywhere — in dreary parking lots underneath optimistically striped tents, on sweetly scented tree farms that sidle up to two-lane roads north of the city. I even see them slouching curbside at the big discount chain stores. Truth be told, I could probably do without the tree, which is only going to shed and die, but as for the Christmas Tree Boys — there’d be no Christmas without them.

Read the whole shebang here.

My favorite place for trees this year: the lot at 36th and Balbao. And, as always, the Delancey Street lot in the Castro, whose hunky purveyors of pine gave me the idea for this article in the first place.