The 2020 Christmas tree “choose and cut” season got off to a wild start as Moss Tree Farms in the Norton community of Southern Jackson County sold out of its 2020 allotment of Fraser fir trees in just one week.
Todd Moss, son of Larry Moss, Moss Tree Farms owner, apologized to customers in a post on the farm’s Facebook page on Saturday for its decision to close early this season as they had already sold its 2020 allotment of Christmas trees.
In just seven days.
“We are so sorry to have to post this now, but we are now closed for the season,” Moss said. “Since we opened a week earlier this year and decided to open seven days a week, we sold way more trees than we expected to and we unfortunately cannot sell any more this year.”
This year’s Fraser fir trees were planted in 2010, right at the end of the 2008 market crash where many Christmas trees were left standing in the fields around Jackson County farms. As a result, many Christmas tree farmers opted to plant less trees that year. Now, 10 years later, there exists a market wide shortage of Fraser fir trees resulting in higher prices and a smaller selection of mature trees.
“We are so unbelievably sorry for the inconvenience,” Moss said. “We would love to stay open and we absolutely hate to do this, but if we stay open then we won’t have any more trees for next year.”
In a late development Monday afternoon, Sawyer Family Homestead Tree Farm announced it would be closed for the season as of Wednesday.
“After some consultation with the powers that be, we decided it would be in our best interests to close this Wednesday,” said Tom Sawyer, owner of Sawyer Tree Farm. “We’re out of trees.”
Sawyer said his opening week was the busiest he has seen in years and plans were to remain open through Dec. 20, but after a weekend in which they were “hammered” with choose-and-cut customers, the decision was made to shut down early.
“When we planted these trees 10-12 years ago, there was no way we could look ahead and guess what would be going on in the Fraser fir market,” he said. “Since before we opened last week I’ve been getting 2-3 calls a day from people begging for wholesale trees. We simply don’t have them.”
After the first week of sales, customers seriously cut into Sawyer’s supply of mature Fraser fir trees.
“We are out of eight-nine-and-10-foot trees already,” Sawyer said of his busy first week, which began on Nov. 20. “This past week was very busy and we sold a lot of trees.”
Sawyer declined to mention how many trees “a lot” specifically meant, but said it ate up most of his available inventory.
“A lot of the tree farms are in the same shape running out of trees they’ve allotted for this tree season,” he said. “Just because someone is out of trees to sell doesn’t mean they’ve sold every tree they have. Growers have a set number of trees designated for sale during each Christmas tree season. When those are all sold, you start to eat into next year’s inventory. You have to save trees for the coming years.”
During the recession of 2008-2010, many Fraser fir farmers cut back on the number of trees they planted, which means farmers have a smaller supply of mature trees even though demand has returned and exceeded pre-recession numbers.
“Because of COVID-19 restrictions we decided not to open our Elf Village this year and our visits with Santa Claus will be socially distanced,” Sawyer said. “The plan was to be able to move customers in and out more quickly so as to free up parking for those coming to purchase a choose-and-cut Fraser fir. We want to be able to keep parking free so we changed our approach this season.”
While the parking lots were full all weekend, parking staff was able to keep the flow of traffic moving.
“The guys that handle parking for us did an outstanding job of moving customers in and out,” Sawyer said. “We were busy but we were able to save a parking space for everybody who came out.”
While Allison Tolbert from Fort Lauderdale, FL already had purchased her Christmas tree, she still wanted to pick up some freshly cut wreaths.
“We came up here because we wanted the Christmas experience,” she said.