If you are not the “do it yourself” kind of person when it comes to selecting and harvesting a Christmas tree, you might be in for a shock this year. It’s projected that live Christmas tree prices are going to rise 20 to 30 percent due to a mixture of rising demand, extreme heat, and drought affecting the trees.
Many artificial Christmas trees bought through Amazon or Walmart are shipped from China. It’s expected that those prices will rise 20-25 percent thanks to high shipping costs and delivery delays. Others are typically shipped from tree farms in Oregon and Washington where catastrophic fires have been raging this summer accompanied by drought. These conditions have impacted tree farms, not only for those that would be harvested this year, but the young seedlings for future tree harvests as well.
Meanwhile, Bridger Teton National Forest Spokesperson Mary Cernicek points out that cutting Christmas trees in a National Forest is a tradition for many visitors, and she says there are no changes to Christmas Tree permit sales for the Bridger-Teton.
Cernicek says, “We count on personal use permits because the practice of removing small conifer trees actually helps thin the forest by removing excess fuel, therefore reducing wildfire risk.”
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