Before this year, Wesley Yang had never celebrated with a real Christmas tree. Growing up, his family deemed it an inconvenience. But stuck at home this season, Mr. Yang and his roommate decided to do something different to mark the end of a tragic year, spending $90 on a tree and lugging it up three floors to their Los Angeles apartment.
“We’re just trying to keep the spirit going, even though we are locked down these days,” he said.
As many people stay home for the holiday season, planning smaller celebrations as they seek some joy during the coronavirus pandemic, Americans like Mr. Yang seem to be driving up demand for Christmas trees.
Families are trying to make the most of whatever experiences remain safe this holiday season, like going outside to pick out a tree together and decorating it, said Jennifer Greene, the executive director of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association, which represents a state that harvests more than 4.1 million trees a year.
“We didn’t realize that the Christmas spirit was going to help people with what we’ve heard called the ‘Covid blues,’” said Doug Hundley, a spokesman for the National Christmas Tree Association.
National sales data is hard to find, but across the country Christmas tree grower associations say that retailers are running through their tree supplies quickly and that growers are reporting a big increase in sales. In Michigan, farmers have seen as much as a 50 percent increase, said Amy Start, the executive director of the Michigan Christmas Tree Association.
George Nash travels each year from Vermont to New York City to sell more than 15,000 trees at spots across Upper Manhattan. “The demand is crazy right now,” he said. “We are almost twice ahead of where we were last year at this point, in terms of sales. If the trend holds, it will be the best year we ever had.”
Even artificial tree companies like Balsam Hill say they are having a banner year. Mac Harman, the company’s founder and chief executive, said its Christmas in July sale had foreshadowed this year’s voracious holiday market.
“It just absolutely has not slowed down,” he said.
A survey conducted over the summer of more than 2,000 adults by TRUE Global Intelligence found that more than half of the respondents said the pandemic had strengthened their desire to spend money on experiences rather than gifts this year. Three-quarters of the respondents considered real Christmas trees to be an experience, rather than a product.
With such a high demand for Christmas trees, some worry that it may be harder for some Americans to find trees later in the month. The industry is still reeling from the 2008 economic recession, when customers bought fewer items. Growers then cut down fewer trees, which left less space for seedlings that would have made the market more abundant about a decade later.
“We’re having difficulty filling extra orders from the States,” said Shirley Brennan, the executive director of the Canadian Christmas Tree Growers Association, whose office has fielded daily calls from south of the border. “That demand, we can’t keep up with.”
That doesn’t mean that Americans who waited to get a tree will end up without one, said Marsha Gray, the executive director of the Christmas Tree Promotion Board, a tree research and promotion program funded by growers.
“Some locations might close early, some locations may not have trees to sell,” she said. “But over all, there are enough trees and there aren’t communities going without.”