Alabama Christmas tree farmer Steve Mannhard remembers a time when trees were purchased a day or two before Dec. 25. That’s not the case anymore.
Families will flock to Christmas tree farms across Alabama this weekend with hopes of finding the perfect tree and set up before Thanksgiving. Being a producer with Fish River Farms in Baldwin County, Alabama, Mannhard is ready to greet those many families in South Alabama.
“Most of the farms now open the weekend before Thanksgiving. There’s been a general trend over the last 10 or 20 years where more and more people want to put their Christmas tree up between Thanksgiving and Christmas and have it up for a whole month or so instead of just putting it up at Christmas time. I was fighting it. I didn’t like people coming and cutting their trees before Thanksgiving,” said Mannhard, who adapted to the changing times.
“They’ll go elsewhere if you don’t (adapt).”
Production in Alabama has increased in recent years. According to the Census of Agriculture, there were 141 farms and 999 acres of Christmas trees produced in 2022 with 24,586 trees cut. That’s compared to 82 farms, 984 acres and 17,038 trees cut in 2017.
“I think that trend of families wanting to do things like this, creating family traditions instead of pulling some type of plastic tree out of the attic; yes, it’s convenient and it’s easy, but it doesn’t do anything for actual family traditional Christmas experiences,” Mannhard said. “To me, a family coming to the farm to select a Christmas tree is a whole lot more meaningful in the long run.”
By Clint Thompson