BALLWIN, Mo. – We’re one week away from Thanksgiving, but it’s almost time for families to start picking out their perfect Christmas trees.
At Sullivan Farms Christmas Trees in Ballwin, organizers have been working all afternoon to prepare for their grand opening on Saturday.
“We’ve got a lot of trees already here. We’ve got two more truckloads coming. One’s coming today, and we’ll be ready to go on Saturday,” said Lynn Sullivan, the owner of Sullivan Farms Christmas Trees.
Sullivan says they’ll have plenty of trees, with new truck loads continuing to come over the next few weeks, but some sizes are harder to get than others.
“Eight to nine are hard to get. That’s probably the hardest size. Eight to nine,” he said. “If you’re wanting a tall tree, 12-to-20-foot tree, you need to come early. Like at least the first week.”
With the cost of the trees from farmers, as well as the increased cost to get them here, the price tag will reflect that at tree lots across the region.
“I have to admit that the smaller trees did not take quite as big of an increase. Maybe $10 to $15 a tree higher. But the large trees, the big trees, they took a pretty significant jump this year,” said Sullivan.
Sourcing trees from all over the country, there are different varieties to choose from, but the favorite is the Fraser fir, which holds its needles the best.
“It’s the second-best-smelling tree up against the balsam fir. And a balsam fir is the old Charlie Brown tree, and it loses its needles the worst. So most people opt for the second-best smell, which is still really smelling your house up for Christmas,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan says that after being in business for 33 years, this has become a family tradition passed down through multiple generations.
“You’ll have somebody come in, and they have a little kid with them, their children with them. They’ll say, ‘Yeah, I was about this age when I first got, when my mom and dad we got our first tree out here.’ And I said, ‘Well thanks for making me feel so old,” he said.
