JEFFERSON
While people were enjoying yesterday's Thanksgiving holiday, it was a busy workday at Ashe County's Cline Church Nursery and other mountain Christmas-tree farms.
Workers loaded thousands of trees that will arrive fresh this morning at retail lots.
As choose-and-cut Christmas tree lots head into their busiest weekend, and truckloads of wholesale Christmas trees are on their way to off-mountain sales lots, farmers say they still expect a good sales season despite the bad economy.
Two weeks ago, Cline and Ellen Church and their workers started shipping out 50,000 to 60,000 trees to wholesale customers along the East Coast.
Cline Church said that no one will really know about sales until after Christmas, but retailers seem to be buying as many trees as usual.
"They don't know what's going to happen and we don't either," he said. "It's a gamble, but they know if they don't have the product, they're not going to sell it."
The weather has been so cold in the mountains that some of the trees have been shipped packed in the ice covering their branches. The trees are fresh and green.
Gas prices have dropped in time to help cut shipping costs.
"Hopefully, the consumer is going to feel like they can spend a little more," Church said.
He said that most retailers know almost exactly what they can expect to sell, based on years of experience, and that sales have been good in bad times before.
Things have looked good so far for James and Helen Pitts at Sugar Plum Farm in Avery County's Plum Tree community. Last weekend, they had nearly twice as many customers on their choose-and-cut lot as they had during the same weekend last year.
"We must have had 150 to 200 kids here with families, and they all enjoyed themselves and had a good time," James Pitts said.
He sold about as many trees wholesale as usual, he said. A few customers placed slightly smaller orders, but he made up for it by adding some customers.
Rick Dungey, a spokesman for the National Christmas Tree Association, said he has been discussing the economy with both retailers and wholesalers who have been in business for 20 or 30 years.
"They're pretty consistent in saying the economy doesn't impact tree sales," he said. "If people want a tree they're going to get it no matter what.… You're not going to give up that tradition. It's too important."
The Christmas SPIRIT Foundation, which commissions an annual survey on Christmas spirit, found that the economy has dampened spirits a bit this year. Measured on a scale of 1 to 100, people rated their Christmas spirit at 59.5, a drop of 6.6 percent from last year.
The Harris Interactive survey took responses from nearly 2,500 adults across the country. Of the regions, the South had the highest Christmas spirit at 61.2.
The poll found that 72 percent of people plan to decorate a Christmas tree, down about 3 percent from last year.
Linda Gragg, the executive director of the N.C. Christmas Tree Association, has recently been working at the Southern Christmas Show in Charlotte, where she talked to many families.
"Some of the comments from consumers there are: ‘We're going to cut back on what we put under the tree, but not the tree,'" she said.
North Carolina growers will harvest 4 million to and 5 million trees this year. It's a $120 million a year industry for the state. North Carolina ranks second to Oregon, which harvests more than twice as many trees.
One family that will have an Ashe County tree this year lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington. This is the second year in a row that an Ashe County Christmas tree is going to the White House. The official White House tree that will be in the Blue Room will be harvested this morning at Jessie Davis' and Rusty Estes' River Ridge Farms in Creston.
There will be a send-off celebration at 2 p.m. at the Ashe County Courthouse in Jefferson.
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
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