Online orders, tree trimming tips, and Christmas tree fun facts from New Hampshire

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 13^th for delivery outside of New England, and December 18^th 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!

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.