COLLEGE STATION — “Yule Cut or we’ll cut,” is the motto at Darrell Lewis’ eight-year-old Christmas tree farm near Grand Saline, east of Dallas.
“When I put this tree farm in, I was looking in the encyclopedia for a name,” Lewis recalls, laughing. “I saw yule log, and that was it. Yule choose, yule cut, yule buy.”
Lewis, owner of Yule Cut Christmas Tree Farm, is one of perhaps 400 enterprising Texas farmers who scurry around every year beginning at Thanksgiving — pouring hot cider and toting city kids around on hay wagons — in a three-week bid for about $7.5 million in farm-fresh tree sales.
From St. Nick’s Pick in the east to a ranch-style Christmas Tree Round Up in the west, Texans will choose from 300,000 local, farm-grown Christmas trees — averaging $25 each — this season, according to the Texas Christmas Tree Growers Association.
“It’s still a young industry. Even though 300,000 Texas trees are ready to cut, we’re in a state where more than 3 million Christmas trees are sold each year,” said Lanny Dreesen of Conroe, Texas Agricultural Extension Service forester.
But Dreesen said Texas growers plan to continue grabbing more of the market each year. For each Christmas tree that is cut this year, at least two will be planted, he said.
In the meantime, Christmas tree farms are building a base of loyal customers by offering a variety of treats — many of them free — to those who trek to the farm each year for a tree.
“Customers inherently want fresh trees, so farmers have made coming to the tree farm a very pleasant experience,” Dreesen said. Texas Christmas tree farms listed in the association’s 1995 directory include specialties such as hay rides, beverages, concession stands, fishing, nature trails, petting zoos and picnic areas, for example.
About 90 percent of the real trees in Texas homes this year will have been grown on farms, Dreesen said.
But “choose and cut” farms and those with “living trees” that can be carted off in large pots then planting afterward are becoming more popular — especially near urban areas — than temporary stands in city lots.
“A lot of my customers come out from the Dallas-Fort Worth area,” said Lewis, whose 50-acre farm has about 8,000 of its 25,000 trees ready for the saw blade this year. “Santa is always here on the weekends, and we have three kinds of wagon rides. We also have a nice arts and crafts store … Yule Shop.”
Kathy Enzerink and her husband Gerry of De Leon believe that “children like to have their own things, so trees should be included.”
The Enzerinks’ Evergreen Acres Christmas Tree Farms advertises a “special section of kid’s trees,” and the couple gladly hand over a saw to keep the kids busy while parents shop for the family tree.
“Children can decorate and undecorate their tree through the season,” she said, “and leave the family tree alone. We let the kids saw. It is a wonderful camera experience.”
The couple’s farm also is one of several now growing Leyland cypress trees, touted for being allergy free. She said because the cypress is a hybrid, it doesn’t produce pollen.
Beyond the glittery tinsel, some farmers are in the tree business on a smaller scale mainly because Christmas trees are “fun.”
“We’re on the main drag in Deweyville,” says Cal Ebner, owner of J-Jack Christmas Trees. “It’s the main street that runs down this town (pop. 1,216) — the road that goes to the school, the post office and the churches.”
Ebner said selling in a small town has pros and cons. “Some people won’t buy because they know you; others will buy for that same reason,” Ebner said.
“About 99 percent of the customers are in good moods when they come,” he added. “You even get a few old grouches, a few drunks and a few hotheads in to buy Christmas trees, but the selling season is fun because of meeting people.”
Dreesen recommended that people try a Texas tree, keep it in a base that holds at least one gallon of water, add fresh water every day, and then look for a nearby recycling program after Christmas.
“Fresh Christmas trees are 100 percent recyclable,” he said. An 8-foot tree can be recycled into a shoe box-full of mulch used for gardening and erosion control or sunk in a pond for fish habitat.
More information about Texas Christmas trees, and the grower association’s 1995 directory, can be obtained from local county extension agents or from Dreesen at (409) 273-2120.