The time to purchase Christmas trees is running a little short and the prices are definitely higher than last year, but that doesn’t seem to be turning away buyers.
“We got them pretty early this year, right around Thanksgiving. We’re at the tail end of our inventory now,” said Elias Young, manager of the Aubuchon Hardware store on S. Main Street. “Prices are higher than last year – everything is, though, so it’s kind of expected to a degree.”
Growers faced higher costs for many items, notably fertilizer, fuel and labor, said Jill Sidebottom, a seasonal spokesperson for the National Christmas Tree Association. The group expected a roughly 10% increase over last year’s average cost of $70 for a “typical” evergreen, a figure based on an online survey of about 2,000 adults who bought trees in 2021.
Actual prices vary widely, of course, depending on the size and type of the tree, where it was grown, and who is selling it.
Robert Maurais of Roger’s Tree Plantation has been selling holiday trees for 20 years.
“It’s like everything in life, it’s going up, you can’t control it,” Maurais said Wednesday as he was selling Balsam firs and Blue spruces next to Everett Arena in Concord. “People don’t think about the fuel, stuff like that.”
He gets his trees from Vermont. Prices range from $40 for the smallest to $300 for an 18-footer. “I’ve sold three, four big ones,” he said.
Drought has affected tree growers in recent years in areas including the mid-Atlantic and parts of Canada. It takes up to 10 years to grow a Christmas tree so today’s supply is the result of decisions made a decade or more ago. Many observers point to the 2008 recession, coming on top of a tree surplus caused by excess planting in the 1990s, as causing a cutback in tree farms and plantings, which leads to a shortage today.
