I’m having a hard time this holiday season because it seems as though one of my favorite Christmas traditions growing up is dying away . . .
When I look back on my childhood, one of my fondest memories is of my family going to a tree farm to physically cut down a Christmas tree. It was usually the weekend of Thanksgiving if we were out of state, or the first weekend in December if we were home. We’d always go to this tree farm called Toogoodoo. I even started taking my family there until the farm closed down after the back-to-back years of terrible weather.
Luckily though, there were still “you cut” tree farms within a 45-minute drive and we were able to go to another one for the next few years. But the end of 2022 saw the close of that tree farm as well. It seemed the closing was a combination of things, but it was mostly that they had exhausted their inventory and wouldn’t be opening in the future.
To be honest, panic set in when I saw this statement because I didn’t start looking up this farm to see when it was opening until the week of Thanksgiving. So then I had to find a new farm, again. When you google “you cut” tree farms, Google takes you to a list of locations where they have already cut the tree, shipped it from North Carolina, and have it sitting in water in a lot.
But I was finally able to find a farm, which I immediately called them, and verified that they would allow us to physically cut down our own tree. They confirmed but warned us that picking was very slim due to the fact that a lot of these other “you cut” tree farms had closed and a lot of people still wanted to cut their own tree down.
We lucked out and found a great tree and got to cut it down, but they were right — where you would expect to see rows and rows of big, full trees, all you really saw was grass and some baby trees. It was a sad sight to see.
Could We Cut a Christmas Tree in 2024?
Fast forward to this year — I started to look for “you cut” tree farms a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. I knew I had to be prepared this year! But I absolutely wasn’t prepared to see that the closest location was two hours away in Beaufort! TWO HOURS?!
Okay, no need to panic because it could be worse . . . and that’s exactly what happened: it got worse. I reached out to the farm because there was no way I was going to drive two hours and find they did not have trees, but that’s exactly what they told me. On December 4th they told me that they would probably be closed by the weekend due to the surge of people buying up their trees! I assumed that it was because of all the tree farms that had closed within an hour radius of me, which is true. But what I didn’t also realize is that it takes about 10 years for a tree to become at least a decent height to sell.
And then it all just really clicked that at least in this part of South Carolina, the likelihood of us being able to cut down our own Christmas tree was going to be slim to none. Unless I am willing to travel to North Carolina (which luckily I do two out of every three years), we would have to be fine with getting a tree from a lot.
Now let me be very clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting a tree from a lot! It’s easier and more convenient, but it’s more expensive (you are paying for shipping) and it’s just not the same.
We got a beautiful Fraser Fir, brought it home, and got it decorated. The weather was absolutely perfect and I got a few pictures of the girls, but we are missing the smell of pine and sap on our hands and the boomerang of us yelling “TIMBER!” as the tree collapsed.
I’m hopeful that maybe in five or so years these tree farms that were forced to close are able to open up again with nice, big, full trees.
Do you prefer to cut down your Christmas tree yourself? Share your tree traditions in the comments below!
