The nation’s hand wringing over supply-chain disruption has kicked into high gear during the holiday season, and anyone who watches or reads the news has likely caught wind of how the global economy will affect, and be affected by, Christmas.
While many people are doing a great deal of worrying about whether there will be an adequate stock of presents under the tree, the majority of consumers’ post-Thanksgiving concerns are currently centered around one tradition nobody wants to do without: the Christmas tree.
Christmas trees are a reliably hot annual commodity, and especially as the holiday season seems to start earlier and earlier every year, they’re a great lesson in the principles of supply and demand. Trees are something people will always want, and, after all, there’s a finite amount of firs in the forest.
So then why have the past two years seen such an insane buying frenzy when it comes to tree shopping, when it’s something we go through every year?
Friday’s Boston Globe reported 2020 as a “record-breaking” year in Christmas tree sales, and added that suppliers were getting ready in 2021 to eclipse it. Globe writer Brittany Bowker spoke to a few retailers and growers who observed a major uptick in demand, with one individual presuming that COVID-19 quarantine made it so that “Everyone wanted to get a tree.”
Peter Howland, store manager of Northeast Nursery in Peabody, agreed that 2021 is set to beat 2020 in tree sales.
“Last year, we ran out on Dec. 9,” he said. “It could be sooner (this year.) We got 2,000 trees and we could sell out in the next couple weeks.”
Howland, who has seen 16 Christmas seasons with Northeast Nursery, noted that demand has indeed been up in recent years.
“We got our trees about a week earlier than usual and people were calling up a week or two before that asking if we had trees,” said Howland, but he attributes the consumer push to stories in the news.
“Everyone on the news is saying ‘buy early, buy early, buy early,’ just like it was last year,'” he said. “And this year it’s kind of the same way.”
However, he differed with the individuals quoted in the Globe who implied that the demand was new, unprecedented, or a result of COVID mania.
Instead, Howland believes that supply ― or lack thereof ― has much more to do with Christmas-tree scarcity than demand. The reason has little to do with the pandemic or supply-chain issues. As a matter of fact, farmers unwittingly planted the seeds of today’s issue 10 years ago.
“It takes seven to 10 years to grow a Christmas tree,” he explained. “Seven to 10 years ago, we had a recession and these (Christmas tree) companies weren’t planting trees. So seven, 10 years down the line, we get less trees in the market.”
There are many reasons for the recent frenzy around Christmas trees, Howland said, but this is the main factor in why stores have been struggling with decreased stock, and it would have easily affected last year’s stock as well.
“People were so desperate for trees (last year), we actually had to cut our live (growing) Christmas trees and they were actually buying those,” he recalled.
Seeing as how an entirely different economic conundrum was at hand when this current crop of trees were planted, Howland was hesitant to pin the crux of the issue on current shipping and supply-chain woes.
“One of the main causes for this is because of not planting 10 years ago, when the Christmas-tree farms didn’t have any money to put into the farm area,” he said.
However, if you simply have to pin the Christmas-tree crisis on a hot-button issue, an argument could be made for climate change.
Howland pointed out that the past two years’ worth of droughts and fires have played a part in diminishing the evergreen population, especially in crucial growing regions like the Pacific Northwest. According to Howland, this is a concern that goes far beyond seasonal sales.
“With grass seed, you’re actually going to lose huge amounts because that’s where most of the grass seed comes from, the Pacific Northwest,” he said. “Because of all the fires and the drought, the price has gone sky high.”
It affects everything, he added.
Ultimately, and regardless of cause, there are still not enough Christmas trees for every American family who wants one. In spite of being about three weeks into the tree-selling season (and with very few weeks to go), Howland said he hasn’t seen any bad behavior from the customers in his Christmas tree lot.
“Sometimes it’ll get busy and people might wait for someone to come help them, but there are no fist fights,” he said. “It’s not like going to Walmart.”
Northeast Nursery Garden Center, located at 234 Newbury St, Peabody, is open Monday to Saturday 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
