Tree-trimming tips from New Hampshire

The first Christmas trees were decorated in 16^th-Centrury northern Europe with fruits, candles and paper flowers. In the 500 years since, people have been coming up with new and creative ideas for trimming the tree. There are formal Christmas trees of delicate silver and gold ornaments, bright trees bursting with colorful baubles, and homey trees trimmed with homemade decorations and treasured family ornaments.

The most important part of decorating a Christmas tree is letting your own personality and holiday traditions shine through. In a tree-trimming rut? Well, here are some ideas from New Hampshire Christmas tree growers to help spice things up a bit:

* String a wide ribbon with festive colors through your tree’s branches as a garland.

* If you normally use small, white tree lights, switch things up with colored bulbs. Christmas lights are even available in efficient LED varieties now, so check out your options and see what you like.

* Pick a theme that suits your family’s style or that is reminiscent of the year just past. Love the beach? Trim your tree with shells and seashore colors. Excited for winter? Make paper snowflakes to adorn the tree. Nature lover? Figurines of birds and other animals make great tree decorations!

* Get creative and craft some new ornaments. Tissue paper flowers held by pipe cleaners are easy to make and add a pop of color to the tree.

* Bring a bit of nature inside by hanging pinecones or dried flowers on your tree.

* Spice it up with sticks of cinnamon wrapped with ribbon. Or hang candy canes from the boughs.

Of course, if you’re a traditionalist, you may cherish pulling out those old ornaments collected over a lifetime each holiday season. Some families purchase a new ornament each year to add to the collection, and we'd bet your family has some tree-trimming tradition that is followed year after year: popcorn and cranberries or silver tinsel or the special star for the top of the tree.

Whether you plan to follow tradition or break in a new idea this year, be sure to start with a beautiful, fragrant, farm fresh Christmas tree! Looking for a New Hampshire Christmas tree farm? Check out our interactive map. 

Happy holidays and merry tree trimming!

Merry Christmas from New Hampshire’s Christmas Tree Farms!

With only a week to go until Christmas, there’s still plenty of festive to go around at New Hampshire’s Christmas tree farms! Most of our farms are open through this weekend, with retail lots, cut-your-own tree, and holiday shopping available. Some farms cater to the last-minute holiday shoppers out there and will be open right through Christmas Eve.

To find out what’s happening at your favorite tree farm as the big day approaches, check out our interactive map and click on your farm of choice for details. 

Those of you who have already found your perfect Christmas tree and brought it home for trimming can find tips for keeping your tree farm fresh through the holidays at the tree care page on our website. 

And if you’re wondering what to do with your tree after the holidays, visit this page of the National Christmas Tree Association’s website for recycling tips – and to see some of the cool ways recycled trees are put to good use. 

From our farms to your home, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a GREEN Christmas!

You’re probably dreaming of a White Christmas – and we are too! But here are a few eco holiday tips from our New Hampshire Christmas tree growers to help you also make your holidays GREEN:

     * If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already taken the first step toward an environmentally friendly holiday by selecting a real, farm fresh Christmas tree. If you’d like to read about the benefits of a real tree (and the dangerous pitfalls of artificial trees), we encourage you to check out this link from the National Christmas Tree Association. 

     * Handmade ornaments are another green holiday tradition. Cut paper snowflakes from colorful recycled paper, use craft paint and festive ribbon to decorate pine cones, tie sweet-smelling sticks of cinnamon with holiday ribbon to make pretty ornaments, save old Christmas cards to cut into shapes for tree ornaments or gift tags, string popcorn and cranberries and dried apples into garlands…. The possibilities are endless!

     * If it’s time to replace your Christmas tree lights, look for LED strands. They use up to 90 percent less energy and last up to a decade!

     * After the holidays, check with your local transfer station or a New Hampshire Christmas tree farm to see if there are Christmas tree recycling programs in your area. Recycled Christmas trees are put to use in a variety of ways, from helping to rebuild coastline and restoring sand dunes to improving fishing areas in New England and providing wildlife habitat. Visit the National Christmas Tree Association website to learn more about how recycled Christmas trees help the environment.

     * Trees may also be chipped for mulch or composted. Evergreen trees should NOT be burned in the woodstove or fireplace, as they may contribute to creosote buildup and increase the risk of a chimney fire.

May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white… and green!

Choosing the perfect farm fresh Christmas tree

A farm fresh Christmas tree, grown with care and expertise at a New Hampshire Christmas tree farm is the perfect start to your holiday decorating. With Christmas tree season now upon us, we offer the following tips for choosing YOUR perfect tree:

* First, make sure you know how tall and how wide you want your Christmas tree to be before you visit your favorite New Hampshire Christmas tree farm. It’s often hard to picture the room you’ll place your Christmas tree when you’re in a field surrounded by beautiful firs.

* Once you’re at the farm – either in the field or at the retail lot – make sure you measure your selected tree to ensure it is the size you want! (This may sound simple, but many a tree trimmer has had to lop off a chunk of tree top to make a Christmas tree fit in the living room!)

* New Hampshire Christmas tree farmers grow a variety of tree types, from the most common Balsam and Fraser firs to the more unusual Korean and Canaan firs and other species. Different types of trees have different qualities, so check with the staff at the Christmas tree farm, or visit the National Christmas Tree Association website http://www.christmastree.org/types.cfm before you go, to find out which tree type is best for you.

* Let the whole family join in the fun of choosing the perfect tree! Many New Hampshire Christmas tree farms offer refreshments, gift shops, and other activities on the farm, so you can create a day of family fun around bringing your tree home.

You can find more ideas from New Hampshire Christmas tree growers at our website, where we have more tree selection tips and a tree care page with tips for keeping your Christmas tree fresh through the season.

Happy Holidays!

Trees for Troops – Delivering holiday cheer, one Christmas tree at a time

This holiday season, Trees for Troops hopes to deliver its 100,000^th farm fresh Christmas tree to a military family. Founded in 2005 as a program of the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation, Trees for Troops collaborates with Christmas tree growers throughout the United States to provide real Christmas trees to United States military personnel stationed in the U.S. and abroad.

Many of our New Hampshire Christmas tree growers donate farm fresh trees to Trees for Troops and accept donations to the program from customers. Some 700 tree farms throughout the country allow Trees for Troops to deliver about 17,000 Christmas trees to U.S. troops each year. Last year, Trees for Troops delivered 17,224 trees to 59 military bases, including seven bases overseas.

For Christmas tree farms and their customers, Trees for Troops offers a way to spread a little holiday cheer – one Christmas tree at a time – and to thank the men and women in our country’s armed services, who often spend the holidays away from home and family.

You can help by visiting a participating farm – many of them have special events or sales dedicated to Trees for Troops. To learn more about the program please visit the Trees for Troops website. 

Happy holidays to all of you – wherever you may be.

Christmas Tree Trivia

Have you ever wondered how long it takes to grow a Christmas tree? Or when the tradition of hauling an evergreen inside during the darkest days of winter started? As New Hampshire Christmas tree farms prepare for the upcoming holiday season, we share some Christmas tree trivia...

• The first record of a decorated Christmas tree comes from 500 years ago! Local merchants in Latvia decorated a tree in 1510 with artificial roses and danced around it before setting fire to it. (Today, of course, Christmas tree decorations are much more varied, and we leave the tree up to admire it and celebrate the season for much longer!)
• During the 1600s, Christmas trees were popular in Germany and were often decorated with apples.
• Americans caught onto the tree craze in the 1800s, and by the 1850s, Christmas trees were being sold commercially in the United States. Initially, these trees were cut from forests, but in 1901, the first Christmas tree farm was started in New Jersey. Today, some 30 million farm fresh Christmas trees are sold each year in the United States.
•  In 1853, President Franklin Pierce, who hailed from New Hampshire, brought the first White House Christmas tree to the Capital.
• Today, Christmas trees are grown on farms in every state, translating to some 15,000 Christmas tree farms, 350,000 acres in production, 350 million trees currently growing, and more than 100,000 local jobs! (Artificial trees, conversely, are generally produced in China and other Asian countries, using harmful heavy metals and petroleum products.)
• For every farm fresh Christmas tree harvested during the holiday season, tree growers plant 1 to 3 seedlings the following spring.
• It takes those seedlings several years to make it to Christmas tree height – an average of seven years.
• The most common types of Christmas trees grown by New Hampshire farmers are Balsam fir and Fraser fir.

New Tricks of the Christmas Tree-Growing Trade

New Hampshire Christmas Tree Promotion Board Chairman Nigel Manley attended his 15^th National Christmas Tree Association conference last month, gleaning information on the latest tricks of the Christmas tree growing trade. Nigel, who manages The Rocks Estate in Bethlehem, was one of more than 400 Christmas tree growers from around the United States, Canada, Mexico, and England to attend the convention in Ohio.

Among the tidbits Nigel picked up from this year’s convention – which he shares with his New Hampshire Christmas tree-growing colleagues – were ways to use social media and other new technology to boost marketing efforts, the latest news on the national Trees for Troops program, and information on growing the increasingly popular West Virginia Balsam (also known as the Canaan Fir).

“Only a few growers from our region are able to attend the national convention, so my role is to bring home the latest techniques for everything from pest control to marketing to share with our members,” said Manley. “The information shared at the convention is important to our local Christmas tree growers. The impact for our local growers learning about these things is huge.”

Caring for your Christmas tree

You've found a beautiful tree and brought it home to deck the halls - here are a few tips for keeping your tree fresh and fragrant through the holiday season:

• If you haven't yet set your tree up, make a fresh cut, removing the lower 1/2-inch of the trunk.
• Whether your tree has been set up for weeks or you're just putting it in the stand now, WATER is the key to keeping your Christmas tree fresh! Check your tree stand regularly to ensure the bottom of the trunk is submerged.
• As much as possible, keep your Christmas tree away from radiators, fireplaces, and other sources of drying heat.
• For more tips, visit our tree care page.

Happy holidays from the New Hampshire Christmas tree growers... May your days be merry and bright, and may your farm fresh Christams tree contribute to your holiday joy!

Last chance to order your tree!

Christmas is just two weeks away, but there’s still time to order a picture-perfect tree from a New Hampshire Christmas tree farm – if you do it soon! To ensure you have your tree to trim before the big day, you must place your order – online or via phone – by December 10th if you live outside of New England. Those within the New England region should order by December 15th.

Mail order Christmas trees are cut fresh and packed in wax-lined cartons to keep them fresh and fragrant en route to your holiday home. Find a New Hampshire Christmas tree farm that offers mail order trees on our mail order page.

We know there are plenty of last-minute shoppers out there. If you don’t get your tree order in on time… well, what a great excuse to visit a beautiful New Hampshire Christmas tree farm! Many farms remain open right to Christmas Eve. For more information on individual farms and their hours and dates of operation, visit our New Hampshire Christmas tree farms map.

Happy Holidays!