The Christmas Tree Shortage continues

EUREKA, Calif.(KIEM)-The topic of conversation the last few seasons is the Christmas tree shortage. Due to the pandemic, many industries have shortages across the country. Due to the covid-strained supply chain but that’s not necessarily the case with Christmas trees the past few seasons. Instead, it’s due to an over-supply of trees that led to the under-planting of new ones a decade ago, along with other factors.

“Because of the extreme weather that they had last summer, it’s very hot up there, and they got a lot of burn on some of the trees. That they would normally harvest and so they are leaving those trees for another year to try and recover and then they also lost about half of one of their fields to fire,” said Jerry Gabriel, Owner of J & L Christmas Trees.

This year, J and L’s Christmas trees located in Eureka have been ordered from three different farms to keep up with demand. In the past few years, they only had to order from one farm.

“I believe we sold out at around December 20th last year. So there were still customers coming, and we were out of inventory. So, I did bring in some extras this year, so maybe that won’t happen again because I want to make sure everyone that wants one can get one,” said Damen Mullins, Owner of Damen and Kim’s Christmas Trees.

Both local Christmas tree lots are anticipating a rush this weekend. This is why they both made sure to order more than the previous years. But they are still not sure if it will be enough to keep up with demand.

“People are buying their trees a lot earlier, so last year, we were sold out of trees on December 8th,” said Jerry Gabriel.