The holiday season is upon us, and tree farms throughout New Hampshire
are bustling with festive activity! To find out what’s happening at your favorite New Hampshire Christmas
tree farm, check our interactive map.
If you’re planning to purchase a mail order tree from one of our farms,
you’ll need to do so soon! The ordering deadline for most
mail order trees is around December 13th
for delivery outside of New England, and December
18th for addresses closer to home. Many farms also offer
handmade wreaths, tree accessories, ornaments and gifts through their online
shops.
For those of you who are ready to trim
the tree, the decorating options seem limitless! From color themes of
silver-and-gold, red-and-green, or sparkling blue to a sentimental hodgepodge
of cherished family ornaments, there are countless ways to decorate a tree.
Homemade ornaments also add a festive and personal touch and can be
eco-friendly to boot – think snowflakes cut from recycled paper, holiday
ribbons tied to pinecones or sweetly scented cinnamon sticks, old Christmas
cards cut into ornaments, and garlands of popcorn, cranberries and dried
apples.
As we approach the Big Day, here are some fun Christmas tree facts:
* The first record of a decorated tree reaches back to 1510, when the
local merchants’ guild decorated a tree in Riga, Latvia, with artificial roses.
* In the 1600s and 1700s, people in Germany commonly adorned Christmas
trees with apples. In some parts of Austria and Germany, evergreen boughs were
hung from ceilings and decorated with apples, gilded nuts, and colorful paper
strips. Candles were added to Christmas trees in the 1700s.
* By the 1800s, Americans had caught onto the Christmas tree craze, and
by mid-century, Christmas trees were sold commercially in the United States.
* New Hampshire’s own Franklin Pierce was the first president, in 1853,
to decorate a Christmas tree at the White House.
* The first Christmas Tree farm in the U.S. was planted in 1901 in New
Jersey, and in the 1930s President Franklin Roosevelt planted a Christmas tree
farm at his Hyde Park, NY, estate.
* Today there are Christmas Tree farms in all 50 states, with some
15,000 tree farms throughout the country, covering about 350,000 acres (and
preserving open space), employing over 100,000 people
* For every Real Christmas tree harvested, tree farmers plant
up to 3 seedlings the following spring.
* It can take as many as 15 years to grow a tree of typical
height (6 - 7 feet) or as little as 4 years, but the average growing time is 7
years.
Here’s hoping your holidays are happy ~ Merry Christmas to
all!
