While most San Diegans spent their Thanksgiving holiday cooking and relaxing, Jessie Gonzalez was hard at work Thursday morning tending a makeshift evergreen forest.
The manager of the Tom’s Adventures Pumpkin Patch and Christmas Trees lot on the corner of Mira Mesa Boulevard and Marauder Way set up and watered about 150 Noble and Douglas firs to make sure the business will be ready greet customers Friday — the unofficial start of the tree-buying season.
“After everybody’s done doing their Black Friday shopping, that’s when they come out and get a tree,” said Gonzalez. “A lot of people want to have it up by the end of November. That way they can enjoy it all the way through December.”
In addition to the Mira Mesa location, Tom’s Adventures also sells trees in San Marcos and Menifee. A tree that’s between 6 and 7 feet high costs $124.99.
“We’re expecting things to be pretty busy this season,” Gonzalez said. “We should sell out, honestly, by mid-December.”
Like many consumer items impacted by inflation, prices of Christmas trees have shot up in recent years.
“In the last six years, they’ve gone up 50 percent,” said Wayne Abernathy, owner of Wayne’s World of Trees and Pumpkin Patch, a staple in the Encinitas area for more than three decades.
Most Southern California sellers get their Christmas trees from Oregon, and Abernathy said supply has been crimped. Many growers in the Beaver State have planted hemp or more hazelnut trees, which produce a greater yield per acre than Christmas trees thanks to a new tree variety.
In addition, the trees sold in the San Diego area arrive by truck, and the price of diesel fuel has nearly doubled in the past three years.
“About eight years ago, it was like $1,500 a load,” Abernathy said. “Now it’s about $4,000 … It’s a shame, because it has to be passed onto the consumer.”
Prices at Wayne’s World are determined by the tree’s height, ranging from $60 for a modest “Charlie Brown tree” to $1,000 for the tallest. Abernathy expects to sell about 1,200 trees in the coming weeks — about the same number as in recent years. As an enticement, his business offers customers free delivery.
As for the consumers buying artificial trees, Abernathy said the impact on his bottom line has been minimal.
“What I’ve found is that (customers) try that for one or two years, and then they want to have a real one again,” he said. “They miss the feeling of it, the smell.”
For those who can’t get enough of the feeling, the Highland Valley Christmas Tree Farm in Ramona is one of a dwindling number of places in San Diego County where people can pick out a live tree, cut it down and take it home.
“Trees that are cut fresh are going to last a lot longer,” said Alessandro Gallone, manager of the tree farm. “I’ve had customers say they’ve had trees that lasted into February. Also, there’s less of a carbon footprint. They’re grown here, they contribute to the local environment and they’re not trucked in from out of state or upstate.”
Alessandro Gallone trims the base of a Christmas tree at Highland Valley Christmas Tree Farm in Ramona.
(Rob Nikolewski / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
About 2,000 trees — primarily Monterey pine and Leyland cypress — ranging in height from three feet to more than 20 feet grow on a two-acre section of a 10-acre property that’s also home to the vineyards that make up the family-owned Principe di Tricase Winery.
But climate change is bringing changes for the business.
“We just planted three other varieties of pine that are meant to grow better in our southern climate,” Gallone said. “The summers have been getting hotter, and the winters have been getting colder.”
The trees at Highland Valley cost $20 per foot — meaning a tree that’s 7 feet high will cost about $140.
“When I compared our prices to Home Depot, it’s actually fairly comparable,” Gallone said. “Plus, you get the experience of choosing your tree and cutting it down, and there are far more experiences and interactions here compared to going to a place like Home Depot.”
Alfredo Gallone, the 78-year-old patriarch, bought the Highland Valley property in late 2005. Although the Christmas tree business is not a big revenue driver for what the family calls its “pine and wine” experience, the elder Gallone said he felt an obligation to customers who have been coming to the property for years.
“A lot of people said, ‘Please keep the Christmas tree farm, my mother took me here as a kid,’” he said. “We’ve finally seen a little bit of profit, but I’ve done it for many, many years, losing money. But I promised I would keep it, and I did.”
One of those loyal customers is Lily Mathews, who bought a 12-foot tree late Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s special, it’s a memory,” Mathews said. “We feel that it kick-starts the holiday season for us.”
Her 8-year-old son Luke had a big smile on his face as Alessandro Gallone helped load the netted tree into the back of the family’s pickup truck for the trip home to Scripps Ranch.
“When we set it up,” he said, “it feels so magical.”
