America’s Christmas Tree War

Big question I have for you. Do you have a Christmas tree? If you celebrate Christmas and if not, that's perfectly okay. If you have a Christmas tree, is it a real tree or is it an artificial tree? Now, the growers of Christmas trees in America have been hurting lately. That's kind of an understatement. America's Christmas tree farmers are losing ground, according to the New York Times, to import artificial trees. And the industry's tiny marketing board is trying to win shoppers back by branding live cut trees as real and plastic ones as fake. Their big break this year, a Home Depot national TV ad campaign. I'm going to show that to you in just a minute. They spent about $10 million airing the ad a thousand times. They're trying to generate interest in live trees. I want to show you this ad and comment on it. I do think it, it is interesting for a couple of different reasons. Let's take a look right now and we can analyze it together. Again, this is courtesy of Home Depot in an ad that is getting nationwide play. So it certainly has that gauzy look, that all American look, the little boy and the the morning sun. There you can see the whole family going to pick out their live Christmas tree. And it does evoke nostalgia. And I will confess to you it makes me feel a little sad. I will cop to it. We do have an artificial tree in my household growing up. Not something we did. We bought real trees and I'll tell you where in just a moment. But let's look at this admore. So here's the little boy looking around. And while he has a full head of hair, he does remind me a little bit of Charlie Brown. And those of you who have ever seen the Charlie Brown Christmas special, remember he went, was given the charge by his classmates to pick out a great Christmas tree and pick the smallest, most spindly tree. So it's evoking images of that a little bit for me anyway. No, doesn't like that one. Now clearly he sees one he likes. I mean, it's, it's hard for me to imagine anyone cynical enough to not have that sort of warm their heart every holiday. You got the light snow coming down. The Home Depot works with family farms to help the right tree find you. Now you see a little boy, he found the tree he loves. They've obviously brought it home, giving it some homemade decorations now. So I have to tell you, I think that's a pretty effective commercial. It makes you feel warm and tingly and it does make you question your practice. It's making me question. I don't know how or when exactly, but somehow we got an artificial tree for our family. And I was thinking back, seeing that commercial reminding me, what did I do as a kid? Well, this may or may not shock some of you. Every Christmas, I worked on a Christmas tree lot. It was with my father. It was something we did together. His men's organization called the Optimist International, every year they did this for decades and decades in Charlotte, North Carolina, would sell Christmas trees with all of the proceeds going to help young kids. And I think it was even targeted to boys. But youth, it was for helping youth. Actually, it wasn't just for boys. It helped all boys and girls. Various charitable organizations. And I remember so many good times and memories. We would have, I think, an oil burning fire. We'd stand around the fire and we would sell Christmas trees. And the people would come, they would feel good about the fact that their money was going to help needy children. I was. There was a lot of camaraderie. It was, again, it was a men's group. So all the people working there were in fact, men. There was an old trailer that would be brought out and you had that smell of the fresh pine, the Fraser fir. There were the long needle ones. And it was something I associated with Christmas. And then we would. In fact, we didn't get a free tree for working there. We bought a tree, but it was a lot less expensive then. We didn't have $100 trees as far as I remember. You could have like a $25 tree, a $35 tree. Last time I checked, trees were hundreds and hundreds of dollars. So I do sympathize for a lot of Americans who say, T.J. i can't afford a real tree. I can get this artificial one and it's good forever. Or I can spend hundreds of dollars every year for something that's going to throw away. So I have some sympathy for that. But I also have sympathy for Christmas tree farmers in America because they're a small group. What they're trying to do is essentially act together as an industry and do some promotion. The way the Got Milk campaign popularized milk for a lot of people. The California Raisins Trade association got together and did claymation ads that got a lot of attention a number of years back. So it is a challenge for commodities. And a Christmas tree is a commodity. A raisin is a commodity. You can't trademark it very easily and distinguish it in the eyes of a consumer. Same with milk. And that's why sometimes they get together and they advertise and promote full disclosure. I have worked with American Dairy Council and the New York Dairy Council for them, helping to promote their messages as well. I've never worked for the Christmas tree or any Christmas tree organization. Here's what I don't know. Environmentally, there's pros and cons to both. If you plant, if you plant a tree and it's, you know, it's bring, it's producing oxygen that's good for the environment. But if you're cutting it down, transporting it all the way across country, having to pay for the gas of a truck, how bad is that for the economy? Especially if you're doing that every year versus making something, let's face it, probably in a factory in China with a lot of metals, plastics, shipping it from the other side of the world, there's an environmental impact there as well. But presumably you can reuse it. You can recycle that tree every year for, well, really indefinitely. Now I have read research showing that a lot of Christmas trees, artificial trees, just end up in dumps every year. So if you're buying a new artificial tree every three years, I can't imagine that not having a much more negative impact on the environment. If you know the answer to this, I couldn't find it in my own research. What, what is really better for the environment? The, the so called real tree or the artificial tree. And what do you have? The other thing as when I was a kid, the artificial trees looked horrible. I mean they really looked kind of tacky in an eyesore back in the 60s and 70s. These days artificial trees look fantastic. I mean, a lot of times you just can't tell until you get up and you try to pull on the needles and realize it's not coming off, it's an artificial tree. So kudos to the artificial tree manufacturers for really upping their game regardless of whether you have a so called real tree. Oh, the other trees that we did get one year was one that still had the roots on. Arguably that would be the best thing for the environment because you put the tree and it comes with a big burlap bag wrapped around it and you put it in your house, it's covered up so there's not dirt getting around. But then after the Christmas holidays, you take it outside, you dig a hole in your backyard or your front yard and you plant the tree. That is something my family did a number of times. I still remember once waking up the next morning and seeing the tree was gone. A motorcyclist had had an accident in the front of our street on Brook Crest Drive in Charlotte, North Carolina, and someone had some kids apparently had put trash bags full of grass clippings across the road, thinking it would give a car above. Well, it put a motorcyclist airborne and it chopped our Christmas tree in half. This was after Christmas. It had already been planted, so I don't really see people doing that very often anymore. If you have bought a live Christmas tree that came with its roots, let me know. I'd love to hear from you. Regardless of whether you use a live tree, artificial tree, a tree with its roots, no tree at all to celebrate whatever you want, I'm wishing you Happy Holidays today.