For the past five years, Margaret and Phillip Moore have been making the three-hour drive up from Atlanta to choose and cut their own Christmas tree from D’s Trees, a farm located on Cane Creek in Cullowhee.

The trip is a specially scheduled event for the couple.

“We look forward to coming up here every year,” Margaret said.

Equipped with boots and gloves, they head into the fields, Margaret joking that her “perfect” tree is always the one that’s the furthest away, up the highest hill. This year it takes the couple half an hour to pick the tree, cut it down, wrangle it into the farm truck, and make the journey back down to the parking lot. While waiting to pay, Phillip helps other patrons carry out their trees and hoist them on to the roofs of waiting SUVs.

The cost for the Moore’s tree? About $40, cheaper than anything they would buy in Atlanta. Fresher too. Margaret says that the last tree they bought in Atlanta was so dried out it lost all its needles in two weeks. Fed up, Phillip got the name of a co-worker’s tree guy, Chuck Denkert, the owner of D’s Trees, and started making the trek to North Carolina for his annual Fraser fir.

Having grown up on a farm, where Christmas trees were anything from cedar to holly, Phillip can’t imagine having anything other than a real tree to mark the holiday. The smell, the “awe factor,” the beauty of a real tree make what some would describe as a hassle — and what the Moores use as a good excuse to get away from the big city — all worthwhile.

“To us it’s not worth having if it’s not real,” Margaret said.

Christmas tree marketing specialists with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and the state Christmas Tree Association hope there are more folks out there who feel the same way about a real tree as the Moores.

So far numbers are looking good. Christmas tree production has risen from $78 million worth of trees in 1996 to $99 million in 2002. North Carolina is second in the country behind Oregon for the volume and dollar value of trees sold, with the state’s most popular tree, the Fraser fir, representing about 20 percent of the national market. Jackson County is the fifth highest producer in the state, raking in nearly $9.5 million in sales in 2003 alone. Macon County comes in tenth.

What tree growers fear are the country’s changing demographics — a growing elderly population that may choose artificial trees for their ease, an increasing number of young singles that don’t put up a tree, and socioeconomic stratification. That is, real trees becoming associated with middle- to upper-class families and artificial trees adopted as an affordable option for the working class.

Christmas trees, it seems, may be a barometer of changing times.

Tiny Tim vs. The Christmas Machine

The rise in artificial tree purchasing has been the most dramatic over the course of the past 10 years. Working-class families with children often find themselves struggling to put presents under the tree. Many simply can’t afford what has become the luxury of a real, live tree, said North Carolina State University Area Forestry Extension Specialist Jeff Owen.

Monday afternoon, Waynesville resident Judy Presnell was perusing Lowes’ display of artificial trees, looking for a nine-footer to replace the old tree she gave to her daughter.

“I’ve had an artificial tree for years,” Presnell said.

Though she grew up with live trees, Presnell said that she found them too hard to care for. She either over- or under-watered them, and the needles fell all over the place and were too messy to clean up. Artificial trees are easier to care for and set up by herself, something she particularly likes since her husband passed away last year.

Many consumers share Presnell’s mindset. In 2003 alone, the number of artificial Christmas trees purchased rose from 7.4 million to 9.6 million, according to National Christmas Tree Association statistics.

“I think those numbers bear close watching,” Owen said.

Consumers often cite financial savings as a reason for purchasing artificial trees. Artificial trees at Lowes, depending on height, fullness and whether they were pre-lit, ran between $200 and $300. Presnell said that while that may seem like a lot, it’s an investment, as even the cheapest real tree is about $30 and after Christmas that money’s gone.

The argument is that while an artificial tree may initially cost twice as much — in 2003, the average price of a artificial tree was $68.80, while real trees were just less than half that at $33.80 — it comes with a longer shelf life. Depending on the quality of the tree (and how much abuse it takes), artificial trees may last between five and 20 years.

“It’s beautiful and it lasts forever,” Presnell said.

Also, it appears that the average price of artificial trees is dropping, while the cost of real trees is on the up. A 2003 Washington Post article quoted Chinese and Hong Kong customs data as showing that three out of every four artificial trees sold in the United States came from one of the 3,000 factories in Shenzhen, China. A nearly equal percentage of wreaths, ornaments and lights made their way into American homes, as well as about $20 billion worth of Chinese made toys.

The same Post article stated that Shenzhen Cosmotree Industrial Ltd.’s most popular seller, the “Canadian pine,” is manufactured for $10.80, but retails for $120 stateside — nearly a month’s salary for each of the company’s 300 workers.

Real trees bear the constraints of the growing season like any other crop. It takes about seven or eight years for a newly planted Fraser fir to reach harvest, said Jackson County tree grower Tom Sawyer. Sawyer, a former public accountant who’s been in the tree business for 20 years, said he isn’t hurting for customers.

“We’re a small operation, and we sell all the trees we can grow,” he said.

But with the slow turnover and the costs associated with a running farm — pruning, pests, equipment — his 80 acres of trees do little more than sustain themselves. Money raised by sales goes right back into the farm.

“We’re not really netting that much of a profit,” Sawyer said.

However, North Carolina growers do not fear the rise in the artificial tree market as much as the total anti-tree movement.

“The area of greatest concern is the number of homes that are not putting up any trees at all,” Owen said.

National Christmas Tree Association statistics show that of the people who choose not to put up a tree, real or artificial, 39 percent said they were home alone or had no children to warrant a tree. People not being home for Christmas represented 29 percent of the treeless population, while 23 percent simply said it was too much trouble.

Marketing

At Tom Sawyer Tree Farm, located in Jackson County’s Glenville community, tree buyers get more than just pine sap to show for their efforts — they get an experience. The farm boasts hot drinks, public restrooms, and live reindeer.

Prancer and Snowflake, two does from Vermont, live on the tree farm year round, spending the holiday season posing for pictures and enjoying the attention.

“They enjoy Christmastime because we tell our customers to bring apples and we keep some apples for the kids (to feed the reindeer),” Sawyer said.

The reindeer are part of a concerted marketing plan that involves radio advertising, customer mailings, news articles and most importantly, word of mouth.

“If one happy person tells a couple more people ...” Sawyer alluded.

The tree farm’s popularity has made it a staple of the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce’s “O! Christmas Tree” promotion, which invites visitors to come spend a weekend (or longer) at any of the participating hotels, bed and breakfasts or rental properties at a discounted rate, enjoy discounted dining and retail and, of course, choose and cut a Christmas tree.

“It was all about finding a shoulder season promotion,” said Chamber of Commerce Director Julie Spiro, referring to the mountain community’s quiet period between fall leaf season and spring and summer’s popularity for outdoor recreation.

Chamber members and farms listed with the Department of Agriculture are invited to participate in “O! Christmas Tree” through letters. Participants pay $50 each, which offsets the annual printing costs of the 3,000 brochures.

The promotion is now in its seventh year, but it’s hard to tell if it is having a concrete affect on either winter tourism or Christmas tree sales. The chamber doesn’t keep numbers on how many visitors book “O! Christmas Tree” trips and the farms don’t report how many buyers come to the farm as part of the promotion.

The only indicators chamber officials have of performance is comparing accommodation tax revenue brought in during the “O! Christmas Tree” promotion period. Since the promotion began in 1998, accommodation tax revenue for November and December has increased 13.5 percent. Tax revenue increased 7 percent from 2002 to 2003 alone.

At the same time, the dollar value of trees sold in and from Jackson County increased from $7.5 million in 2002 to nearly $9.5 million in 2003, according to the county’s agricultural extension office data.

But marketing, particularly of the North Carolina Fraser fir, is nothing new.

“It’s not a commodity, there’s no standardized price, there’s not a specific buying place,” Owen said. “While it’s a wonderful tree and there’s a sense of it almost selling itself, that’s a myth.”

Since the 1990s the state’s department of agriculture has been working in conjunction with the Christmas Tree Association to develop a brand identity and market the trees like any other crop. These days the effort is becoming more focused, Owen said. The National Christmas Tree Association has teamed up with the movie “The Polar Express” in promoting the Christmas spirit.

“The National Christmas Tree Association hopes that children and parents across the country will slow down and spend family time together by seeing ‘The Polar Express’ and selecting and decorating a fresh, real Christmas Tree this holiday season,” states the group’s Web site.

Consumers can receive a discount on real trees at select retailers and choose and cut fields by presenting a movie ticket stub, as well as win scholarships and trips through association contests.

“I think we’re making some headway this year,” said Patricia Gaskin, president of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association.

The N.C. Association also is working to bill real trees as renewable resources, saying that customers have two choices: “First, you can use a renewable, recyclable natural product grown on farms throughout North America; or, you can use a non-renewable, non-biodegradable, plastic and metal product made in a Chinese factory. You pick. It is much better environmentally to use a natural, organic crop and recycle it after the holidays,” states the group’s Web site.

Locally, the only Christmas tree recycling site is located at the Jackson County Transfer station in Sylva. Other recycling locations exist in South Carolina and Tennessee, within about an hour’s drive from Western North Carolina.

In addition to marketing real Christmas trees, agricultural officials are working to educate growers and sellers about the best ways to care for trees once they’ve been cut and pass this information on to consumers. Tips include storing trees upright in the shade, in water or on a sawdust bed that can be kept moist, and making a fresh cut before the tree goes home — all things that help keep pre-cut trees from drying out.

“We’re trying to make the real tree experience the best that it can possibly be,” said Bill Glenn, marketing specialist with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.