Christmas Trees Will Be More Expensive This Year — But There Will Be Plenty to Go Around

Photo: Getty

Rockin' around the Christmas tree is about to be a little pricier.

Christmas tree buyers should expect to pay more for pine, fir and spruce trees than they did last year, according to aCNNreport.

But what is responsible for this holiday season price hike? Rather than a lone Scrooge, the culprit is inflation.

Like for so many other products right now, inflation is leading to higher consumer costs — and agricultural inflation is particularly high. In the last year, tree farm costs, including everything from raw materials to shipping, have increased.

One of the greatest concerns for Christmas tree growers is transportation.

“Our trees are primarily transported on trucks. The trucking industry is facing a shortage,” Bob Shaefer, CEO of Noble Mountain Tree Farm, a 4,000-acre Oregon farm, toldCNN. “For our farms, they’re all challenged about getting their products from point A to point B for the holiday season and how much more it’s going to cost them.”

But don’t “bah humbug” just yet. It may be more costly to get Christmas trees to consumers this year, but there is a silver lining: after several years of reported tree shortages, there will be plenty to go around this holiday season.

This year, Christmas tree farms say that they do not expect any shortages and that the harvest “looks good,” perCNN.

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“They told us that they do expect to pay more for trees because of overall inflation but that they’re still going to buy their tree,” Marsha Gray, executive director of Real Christmas Tree Board, told the outlet.

source: people.com