Chad McComic hauls Fraser firs from a truckload of more than 200 Christmas trees Friday morning, lining them along the front yard of CM Farms in West Point.

As he prepares the staging area for his Christmas tree lot a week before Thanksgiving, McComic said calls have already begun coming in from customers eager to know when trees will be available.

Despite their interest, McComic said he isn’t expecting a strong season.

“No one really has extra money,” McComic said. “They’re just getting by, making the money to pay the gas and water bill and stuff like that. They’re not going to be spending it on extra trees for Christmas. They’ll either not have one or just use an artificial, or we’re seeing a lot of our customers … cut their size back for a smaller tree that’s cheaper.”

McComic been selling Christmas trees off and on since the 1990s, but he began doing it more consistently in 2018, shipping in Fraser firs, Douglas firs, blue and black spruces, noble firs and grand firs from North and South Carolina, Washington, Michigan and Canada, with prices ranging from $30 to $300, depending on the size.

But rising living costs and increased competition have made it difficult to stay profitable. McComic said his sales dropped about 35% last year compared to the previous season. This year, he plans to put out about 75 trees, roughly half of what he offered just a few years ago.

Even as the only Christmas tree seller in West Point, he said he still loses customers to vendors in Lowndes and Oktibbeha counties.

“We don’t mind competition, but we hate to do competition with Lowe’s,” McComic said.

Toby Steed, vice president of East Mississippi Lumber Company, said that competition is particularly fierce in Oktibbeha County.

“I think there’s six places to buy Christmas trees here, so you’re competing against big boxes and other mom and pops,” Steed said. “Ours is mainly about relationships. … The first 40 that we sold were pre-sold. The customer told us what they were looking for when they bought a tree last year or years previous to that, and we keep their name and number and call them when the trees get here, and they get theirs the first day.”

In just two days, Steed said about 47 trees have sold. The business carries Fraser, Douglas, balsam and grand firs, priced from about $36 to $219. Despite the competition, East Mississippi Lumber has steadily increased sales over the past seven years, growing from about 80 trees in 2018 to 200 today, nearly always selling out.

Artificials ‘aren’t Christmas to me’

In Columbus, Sissy French-Hogue, a manager at Walton’s Greenhouse, said she has noticed a dip in live Christmas tree sales in recent years. Still, she’s hopeful for a strong season.

“Sales have been down in fresh trees for over the last two, three years,” French-Hogue said. “I think a lot of people are going to artificial. You don’t know exactly, and cost does go up. … There are a lot of factors, but our sales have been good, and I’m hoping we’ll sell every tree on this lot.”

Walton’s brought in 200 seven- to 11-foot Fraser firs from North Carolina about two weeks ago, and already 40 have sold. She said the farm supplying their trees has raised prices slightly, but the extra cost hasn’t yet been passed down to customers.

“We haven’t gone up on our trees in two years,” she said. “We do that for our customers. It’s not … a big profit moneymaker. It’s almost more of a courtesy than anything, but as everything, it’s going to fluctuate. In this business, you never know from year to year. It’s going to depend on what’s the hot new thing.”

But while seemingly more people are opting for artificial trees every year, French-Hogue said for people like her, that’s not what Christmas is about.

“They’re not Christmas to me,” she said. “I always get a fresh tree and it’s always done with icicles and lights and homemade ornaments. … But a lot of people don’t want to fool with the mess of a fresh tree. A lot of people don’t want the expense because once it’s over, it’s thrown out. It’s just easier.”

‘You can’t rush them’

While some sellers are enjoying early-season momentum, others have paused sales entirely.

Wayne Childress and his wife have operated Childress Tree Farm in Aberdeen for more than a decade. But after a year of diseased trees, the farm will need several seasons to recover.

“We’ve had good customers that have come ever since we had it,” Childress said. “Hopefully we’ll get it back in shape. … It’s hard rebuilding, then we had a couple years where trees just died on us. … You can’t rush them. They’re only going to grow so fast.”

Childress said he hopes to have a small number of trees available next year, but said it will likely be 2027 or 2028 before his current saplings are ready to sell.

McComic has faced similar challenges at CM Farms. Disease and drought wiped out about 100 of his Leyland cypress saplings last year. Even so, he remains optimistic that by 2027, he will have about 800 homegrown trees available.

“It’s part of my plan … to have more things for the kids to do, activities kind of like the pumpkin patch,” he said. “It’s something you can make a, hopefully a full day event out of, or at least a half a day event for families to come pick the tree out.”

To boost sales this season, CM Farms will host an all-day holiday vendor market on Nov. 29, featuring bounce houses, Santa, food and handmade crafts.

“We’ll have pictures and a whole little festival to hopefully get people to come out and hopefully take a look at the trees while they’re here,” McComic said.