WILLISTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Christmas tree farms in Vermont tell us the weekend after Thanksgiving is usually their busiest time.
Mark Coles gets his Christmas tree at Handy Hill Farm in Williston every year.
“For now we are going to put it into a bucket. Let it sit in the garage. Let the snow get off of it, and probably next weekend we will put it up,” Mark Coles of South Burlington said.
He says he always goes to the Hill because it is more satisfying to cut your own tree, and he can’t wait for that pine smell, to fill the house.
“We have a fake tree, so if we are traveling for the holidays we put up the fake tree so we have it. But the real one is so much better, smells nice. Course this year we have two new cats. So it’s going to be an adventure,” Coles said.
This is the business’s ninth year, growing and selling Christmas trees.
The farm has been open for a few weeks, and they are seeing upwards of a dozen people every day.
And despite inflation, owner Shawn Handy has been able to keep prices the same, and this year the weather was in their favor for the growing season.
“My Christmas tree farm here, I get in trouble when it is too dry. When we have the really wet seasons my trees do great. Because I am on a hill, it is well trained soil here. So this year was good for me for growing. Most people look for frasers. They tend to be the ones that hold their needles the longest,” Handy said.
And when people put that fresh cut tree on top of their cars to bring home, they say picking the one they want, is what keeps them coming back.
“We did two years go, and then last year we went to ACE and got one that was pre wrapped. It just did not look as good as the ones that grew over here,” Jack Vickers of Maine said.
Handy Hill Farm is getting ready for next season to plant more trees in the spring.