Americans Are Dreaming Of A Green, Not White Christmas And Tree Sellers Are Enjoying The Results

And what’s not to like? Artificial trees are plug-and-play. They are easy to handle, snap together in a flash, are perfectly proportioned with no holes or gaps, come pre-lit, leave no needles on the floor and once the holidays are over, they can be stored away for use next year. This saves families a lot of money, since most trees are kept for seven years.

But this year, more American families are choosing authenticity over convenience. And this may mark a turning point to return to the tradition of decorating with natural trees.

Unexpected surge in demand

Year-to-date, natural Christmas tree sales are up 29%, according to a survey of Christmas tree associations, farmers and retailers by Evercore ISI Research. Demand is so strong that many tree sellers are reporting shortages of the most popular seven-foot trees.

Christmas tree growers weren’t prepared for the sudden surge, since it takes between eight-to-ten years to grow a natural tree to that size. Ten years back, right after the recession, growers were leery of planting too many seedlings, resulting in a shortage this year.

Miller’s Christmas Tree Farm, which operates two choose-and-cut tree farms in Pennsylvania, has closed one of its locations to allow its smaller trees to grow. “Demand is good, but we don’t have the supply,” co-owner Susan Miller told the local Reading Eagle newspaper. “Most farms I know of are on the same page.”

Tight supplies are going to mean rising prices, with the average price expected to top $81 this year, up from $77 last and $66 in 2018.

“Due to smaller planting levels in earlier years, the supply of harvestable trees has been tight since 2015,” the National Christmas Tree Association (NCTA) reports, but reassuringly adds, “There has never been a true shortage where consumers were unable to buy a tree.”

Last year, Americans spent $2 billion buying some 26.2 million trees. This year’s takings are sure to be much greater, bringing much needed profits to the shrinking number of tree growers who took seven years after the 2008 recession to finally make a “reasonable profit,” reports the NCTA.

Return to the farm

Family farms and small retail businesses are going to share in this year’s windfall. While 24% of trees were sold last year at major retailers, like Walmart WMT, Home Depot HD and Lowe’s LOW, the rest was split among smaller players, including 13% at local garden centers and nurseries, 17% at local retail lots, and 7% among non-profits.

However, the most popular destination to shop for a real tree is a choose-and-cut farm, like Miller’s. Some 32% of natural trees were bought there last year.

And after this year, many more American families are going to turn back the clock to recreate that early-American experience of hiking through the woods to find their perfect tree. Plus, there’s little danger of catching Covid out on the farm.

Millennial-generation families will take the lead going out to hunt for a real tree. Some 36% of millennials prefer a natural tree, as compared with 31% of GenXers and 20% of Baby Boomers, according to a survey conducted last year by ValuePenguin and Qualtrics with 1,000+ Americans.

The natural tree contingent is drawn first to the experience of selecting the perfect tree (62%) to be the centerpiece of the holiday celebrations. Authenticity is a big part of it too, being more festive (48%) and bringing the natural scent of evergreens into the home (46%).

For nearly half of those who choose a natural tree, it’s all part of a family tradition and with so many new families expected to head to a Christmas tree farm, garden center or local lot to find a tree this year, those millennial families are likely to make it a tradition for many years to come.

Of course, as in every other retail category, natural Christmas trees are available online, with about 6% of consumers choosing this option last year. Amazon AMZN sells them through one of their third-party vendors, though at over twice the price one would expect to pay elsewhere. Home Depot and Lowe’s are fulfilling online orders for pick-up or home delivery too.

Natural is better

Regardless of how one chooses to buy, a natural Christmas tree is an environmentally-friendly, renewable choice. They preserve green space, with 350,000 acres in production across the country and with trees grown in all 50 states.

And after the holidays, those trees can be turned into valuable compost, mulch and wood chips for gardeners at the more than 4,000 local communities with a recycling program.

By contrast, most artificial trees are produced in China and made from metal and plastics, like polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which can be a source of lead. And these artificial trees inevitably end up in landfills where they don’t break down.

Interestingly, the first artificial tree was manufactured in the 1930s by Addis Brush Company, which adapted its technology making toilet bowl brushes to produce trees.

Call me a purist, but no matter how hard manufacturers work to make their fake Christmas trees look real, they will always look like over-sized toilet bowl brushes to me.

No matter how much they cost, the challenge of setting them up and stringing the lights, and the cleanup afterward, it will only be a natural tree for me, and I suspect for many more millennials as they continue to choose authenticity and environmentally-sustainable choices in their purchasing.

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