Seasonal Trees

[Leon]

Sorta on topic, it's wood. Christmas is just around the corner, for some of us it's next month for the younger ones it's still about 2 months away. Anyway, as a kid in the 60's the magic of having the Christmas tree in the house was the smell. I learned some years back that the trees were being cut as early as late September and it seems that in the last 30 or so years the trees have lost their smell. For those of you that live in the northern U.S. and or Canada, do your trees get cut that early? Do they still have that smell?

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Here in CT, the local trees are often fresh cut when bought or a day or two before if you don't want to trudge the fields to find one. They have a nice smell. About a week before Thanksgiving though, I see trucks on the road heading south with loads of trees.

[Lew Hodgett]

Every year in Northern Ohio, got the tree out of the attic, stood it up, sprayed it with smelly and got a beer.

Done for another year.

Lew

[Artemus]

Here in Oregon they shipped about 8 million trees last year. The growers I've talked to say they harvest and ship to Asia in mid to late Oct. Mexico gets shipped to next, followed by the eastern US. The last shipments go out by the 2nd week in Dec. As for the smell ours are quite aromatic. But then again we cut our own and it's in the house the same day.

Art

[Mike Marlow]

I guess it may depend on what part of the country you live in, but regardless there is one sure fire way to tell - go to the lots that sell Christmas trees and see if you find that smell.

[Maxwell Lol]

We make a holiday of it. Several families show up for breakfast at our house, where I make sausage, bacon, eggs, and homemade cinnamon buns. Then we go to a tree farm, and search for the perfect tree. My wife likes to find a tree with a bird nest. "If it's good enough for a bird, it's good enough for our house." After getting the tree bagged and tagged, we go to the nearby pub and drink several pints of draft brews, and have a pub lunch. Then the families separate and retire to their house.

The trees smell great, and lasts for months without losing needles.

[B A R R Y]

Where's the bird gonna live?

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[Frank Boettcher]

For a number of years, in Northeast Mississippi, I had been getting my Christmas tree from a local tree farm. After Thanksgiving, ride the wagon out to the field, select and tag your tree, cut it and bring it home later. So it was fresh and certainly had the smell.

Last year we got a card in the mail stating the the owner of the tree farm had advanced stage cancer and that they were shutting down their operation. Sad.

Man was a retired dairy farmer converted to Christmas tree farming. My wifes uncle in Georgia did the same thing. I asked him once why the shift from dairy farming to Christmas tree farming after all those years. He said, " well Frank, those Christmas trees don't care what time you get up in the morning"

Frank

[Leon]

DAMN! that sounds like a wonderful childhood memory. LOL We started doing that a few years back and last year did not even put up a tree. It's not Christmas with out the smell.

[Leon]

I recall the tree filling the house with that smell. Now you can be in the middle of the Christmas tree lot have a hard time smelling the tree. You have to shake every tree to make sure it will make it home with some of its needles. Most are sprayed with a green dye.

[Leon]

We have Tree farms near Houston that you can go and cut your own tree, but I guess because of the warmer climate the type tree that we get locally has very little aroma to it.

[Leon]

The lots have that faint smell. I think the trees that we get now are all dried out by the time we get them,.

[Leon]

We have local tree farms, we go out and find the perfect tree, try to find one "with out" a wasp's nest, take it to the machine that shakes the dead needles off and bags it, load it up, take it home, take a shower to wash the sweat off.

THOSE are the trees I remember. After Christmas we kids would gather all the trees in the neighborhood that had been put out for trash pick up and take them into the woods and build forts. The smell in the forts was wonderful. ;~)

[Swingman]

"Leon" wrote

Like anniversaries, every holiday should have a gemstone/metal/substance associated with it ... Christmas is plastic.

... and look out, it's almost Halloween. The ads start in about two weeks, with the blow up yard ornaments soon to follow.

[Leon]

We have local tree farms, several infact, but they dont have that smell. I suspect the climate is too warm for the right kind of tree and smell.

Yes it is. There shoud be others though.

. That sounds right. LOL

[B A R R Y]

We're passing on a tree this year, as we have two 6 month old kittens.

I'll thickness plane some pine in my basement shop for the smell.

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[HeyBub]

You've got to know where to get the odiferous, coniferous trees.

The auto parts shop!

That's right. They have little 6" trees that put you right in the pine forest!

Bring back memories of a simpler time, chesnuts and marshmallows in a roaring fire, granny spaced out on eggnog; visit AutoZone today!

[Leon]

Uh huh, how many decorations will they hold? ;~)

[Lew Hodgett]

Unfortunately, another holiday ruined by some creeps.

For the last 25 years, have not passed out anything edible at Halloween, but rather coins.

Too bad, candy was what I remember as a kid, not a coin.

Lew

[Charley]

One year when I was young my mom decided that she wanted us to have a real traditional Christmas tree. She got my dad to take us to a tree farm where we selected and cut the perfect tree. When we got home and dad put the tree up in the living room my mom popped some popcorn and then made my sister and I make garlands from the popcorn and real cranberries by threading heavy thread through them with needles. Then we decorated the tree with the usual lights and ornaments but added these garlands. That year our tree didn't last very long at all. Some field mice got into the house and every night they went up into the tree to eat the popcorn and cranberries and our 2 cats went up into the tree to try to catch them. Our tree was knocked down 2 nights and totally destroyed within about a week. Well, at least my mom never made my sister and I make those garlands any more after that year. We went back to having a more normal Christmas with non-edible decorations on a real tree.

Charley