Saturday, December 08, 2007

$75 Christmas Tree? Get Real

Being a nurseryman and having worked with friends who are in the tree biz for a long time I was chagrined to see Fraser fir trees for sale on a local Geneva IL lot at about 7' for $75. 
 
That is way over the top.
 
So, I trotted over to Lowes and bought one for $28.  Same tree, same town.
 
I don't LOVE supporting big box stores but triple the price, come on.  I sell 7' balled and burlapped trees all day long for $75.  To harvest that tree they have on the lot in Geneva was a sawdown.  Automated.  Then they baled and loaded about 500 on a truck and hauled them to the lot.  If they have $15 in them I'll be surprised.
 
I know I live in one of the richest counties in America, I know the average salary in our county is over a hundred grand per household and the average new house sold approaches a million dollars each but this is silly.  Just because you think you can you shouldn't rip the world a new one. 
 
What's worse, people were lined up buying trees.  Bringing their SUV's in to have one go for a ride on top.
 
I think I just earned my fuddy duddy award today.  Bah Humbug.

3 comments:

brother steve said...

I bought an 8' frasier from lowes for the same price. Lowest price by far, Cub, Menards, local lots. Duh, buyer beware.

Anonymous said...

Our favorite tree of all time - we bought a 8' live tree about 10 yrs ago at WalMart for $9.99. Couldn't afford anything else. That was our whole Christmas. Every year since we talk about how great that tree was. Maybe it was because everything was so much simplier then.

TYJ

Anonymous said...

When we were young, Santa brought our tree (and presents) after we went to bed Christmas Eve. It was great to go to bed without one Christmas item…save for the Christmas lights on the house, and wake up with an outrageous full blown Christmas scene that morning. My folks did such a great job hiding it all and who knows how late into the night they were up with the tree and assembling all the toys. It was magic.

We still do that today. My sister, brother and I go out to mom’s with the biggest tree we can find at 9pm Christmas eve. Our family home had 8’ ceilings so we would get an 8 or 9 foot tree. Trimming what we had to, to get the darn thing into the house. We have always gone to the same tree lot, going on 40 years now, and bargained with the same guy, Eddie. We’d get a 300 dollar tree for 50 bucks and a plate of fresh cookies. We’d load it onto my flat bed ourselves and off we’d go.

When Mom moved out to Leisure Village we were scared that the ceilings might be a wee bit shorter or the doors too narrow….BUT!!!!! Her smaller new place has an 11’ tall peak in the center of the living room. Any guess as to the height of our last 3 trees. They scrape the ceiling and probably go 8’ in diameter. My brother is the lighting technician, then Mom and Paula take over with the ornaments and finally I am the tinsel master extraordinaire…one strand at a time…one strand at a time… Our trees are the talk of the town.

It is magic. I love my family very much. I can’t wait for Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas everyone.