Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, business booms at Christmas tree farms

While other businesses are struggling just to stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, many Christmas tree farms are reporting their best year ever.

David Morin, owner of Arrowhead Acres in Uxbridge and past president of the Massachusetts Christmas Tree Association, said he sold about 500 trees in all of 2019. This year, he sold that many in his first weekend, just after Thanksgiving.

“Everything’s going much faster,” Morin said Wednesday. “We don’t know whether it’s because people are ready to explode from being kept indoors. It seems like everybody is also kind of panic buying, like the toilet paper shortage.”

Business has been so brisk at some tree farms that they plan to close next weekend — normally the biggest sales weekend of the year — because they’ll have sold out of trees, he said.

Morin doesn’t plan to close until Dec. 20, and whereas in years past, he’s been open only on weekends, this year, he’s been open seven days a week, partly to try to make up for all of the business he lost as a wedding and banquet facility due to COVID-19 and partly to make it easier for people to socially distance.

“There’s no tree fresher than the tree you watch being cut, and it’s one of the activities you can safely do,” he said. “People cooped up this year because of the pandemic are anxious to get out, and here they have 48 acres to roam.”

Last year, about 27.4 million real trees were sold, said Doug Hundley, spokesman for the National Christmas Tree Association. And this year, sales could “very possibly” exceed that number, he said.

“There are several indications that if there is an increase, people are reacting to the stress of the COVID pandemic,” he said. “Christmas has everything to do with tradition, and people are yearning for normalcy. They want to have an old-fashioned Christmas. And since most people are going to be staying home this Christmas, they were excited to get started decorating.”

The season typically begins the weekend after Thanksgiving, but this year, people began buying trees the weekend before, Hundley said. And since real Christmas trees sales are outdoors, people feel safer because there’s better air flow than inside and a better chance of social distancing, he said.

“With the pandemic, people are looking forward to a happy time, so I think that’s why they’re excited to buy trees early this year,” said Linda Luks, co-owner of Luks Tree Farm in Auburn, where sales have been brisk. “I think it gives people a sense of comfort and hope and brings some joy into their lives.”

Megan Krugger, co-owner of Mistletoe Acres Tree Farm in East Bridgwater, said this season has been the busiest in the nine years the farm has been open. On Black Friday, she said, there was a line of customers with a 45-minute to a 1-hour wait.

On Wednesday, Morgan and Paul Cavicchi of East Bridgewater brought their sons Lucas, 11, and Cody, 8, to get a tree.

“Given everything that’s gone on this year,” Morgan Cavicchi said, “it’s something the kids love that gives them a little sense of normalcy.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3mAulEm