In the weeks after Thanksgiving and before Christmas, many families invest a great deal of consideration into selecting the perfect size, shape and price for their trees. Though the holiday tradition remains a staple for the families that purchase them, the trees mean even more to the families who have spent decades growing and selling them.
Ethan Stone, who has owned and operated West Brook Christmas Tree Farm in Athol for more than 40 years, and who jokes he was “born with a balsam fir” in his hand, said challenging seasons over the last few years inspired changes to his farming practices.
Stone said drought, in particular, has increased his cost of business, as he and his workers need to hand water their trees more frequently. He added that the dry season had a more devastating impact on his smaller trees, rather than his more mature firs.
“Our cost skyrocketed because of that [drought] — our older crop was affected a little bit, but not as much. We still have a really good and bountiful older crop of full-size trees that are doing OK. Luckily, I had a lot of help from a lot of friends and family, and we went to a hand-watering method,” Stone said. “We did lose quite a few, but we were able to keep others thanks to the people that helped me here at the farm. Our older crop just didn’t grow as much as they would have this year, but they’re still very healthy trees and we still have a really bountiful supply of really good trees this season. We’ll feel it more in a few years down the road.”
This winter marked the 65th in which Peter Wood, 84, and Dianne Wood, 82, have owned and ran Wood’s Tree Farm on Country Club Road in Greenfield. While Dianne enjoys making kissing balls and wreaths in their wood stove-heated storefront, they both take pride in watching happy families choose and drive away with their trees.
“You make a lot of people happy and you make a lot of friends,” Peter said. “Yesterday I had a guy who came in and he said it’s his 31st year coming here. We had another family where the first year she came, she was carrying her baby in front of her. That baby girl who was with her, now she’s 36. … We have a lot of repeat customers.”
Although Peter and Dianne began growing trees in the early 1960s, Peter said the couple could only begin selling in the early 1970s. Since then, he explained that he and his wife have learned valuable lessons about the business that they plan to pass down to their kids when they take over the farm in the next few years.
“Right now, the fields are closed. We’ve closed because if we don’t, we won’t have enough trees next year. You have to manage your products to keep your customer base safe and happy,” Peter said. “There are 20 farms right now that are closed, and in my opinion, that’s way, way too many.”
Peter said the last five years have brought some challenging weather, with a particularly wet spring and dry summer this year. Between 2021 and 2023, he said extreme weather resulted in the loss of more than 3,000 trees that he had planted.
“This year, it was real wet in spring, then real dry in the summer. Fortunately, we got some wet in the fall, which helped, but the weather’s really unpredictable,” he said. “There’s no way around it; you just go with the flow. That’s all I can do.”
The Greenfield and Athol farms are not alone in their struggles with unpredictable weather, as Seth Cranston, a fourth-generation co-owner of Cranston’s Christmas Tree Farm in Ashfield also said his farm has seen a particularly challenging year because of erratic weather patterns.
Amid harsh transitions from heavy rainfall to drought year-over-year, Cranston said his trees have seen a higher mortality rate in recent years than they had in the past. He said he hoped to begin planting Korean balsam hybrid trees in the near future, as they are a uniquely resilient species that can better withstand extreme weather patterns.
“It’s been challenging for the past few years with the imperfect weather. Certainly, the erratic weather patterns that we’ve been experiencing of late has affected Christmas trees,” he said. “The weather period and significant rainfall that we’ve had, specifically this past spring, as well as the last couple of years, have impacted our trees. Not the ones that we’re harvesting this year, but more the smaller ones that we will be harvesting in future.”
Weather complications aside, Stone, Cranston and the Woods all agreed that the joy they see in the smiling families that buy their trees make the business worthwhile.
“Seeing the families leave here happy and excited with a Christmas tree that I planted and pruned and fertilized and mowed around and sometimes had to water for the last 18 years, that’s a special feeling,” Stone said. “Seeing the kids come and they’re with their folks, and then watching those kids grow up, there’s just nothing like it.”