The cost of Christmas trees from a tall $9.99 a foot in Manhattan where everything is priced dear to about $9.99 for a stately 7-footer in Oregon, the No. 1 tree-growing state - held steady this year, a spot check shows.
About 35 million Christmas trees are expected to be sold before the last stockings are hung in 1989 at an average price of $3.25 to $5.25 a foot, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.While prices vary by region, practically nowhere in the country do trees cost more than a year ago, the United Press International spot check indicated. In some cases, prices have dropped.
A summer drought followed by heavy autumn rains in some areas killed off saplings, but the majority of the 6- to 7-year-old evergreens brought to market were not affected, said the NCTA, a Milwaukee, Wisc.-based group that represents some 2,700 tree producers.
But as the days dwindle down to Christmas, shoppers searching for that perfect Noble fir or blue spruce grow more bargain-minded - including swells from the Big Apple's Upper East-side.
"There are the super-rich who just come in, hand over $150 and say `bring me your best tree,' " said Michael Weil, a 27-year-old entrepreneur who bought 700 trees in Pennsylvania's Pocono mountains, trucked them to New York and plans to sell them at mark-ups of around 300 percent.
"People generally want to haggle a little bit because it's seen as part of the experience, but there's a lot more haggling the last week since everybody knows the trees are worthless to me on Dec. 26th," he said.
West Coast wholesaler Howard Churchill, who acts as a Christmas tree middleman in South San Francisco, Calif., said his prices have fallen by 10 percent in each of the past two years because of a glut of Oregon-grown trees.
Churchill, in the business since 1949, blamed the situation on the "greed" of some farmers who noticed a tree shortage six and seven years ago and overplanted trees that now are coming to maturity.
He estimated retail prices of $30 for a 6- to 7-foot Douglas fir in northern California and up to $40 for the same tree in Southern California.
In Texas, one of the few areas of the country where the weather has taken its toll on Christmas trees, prices "probably are up a little, but we've got a good supply of native trees," said Gilbert Helm, market master of the Dallas Farmers Market, where some growers are selling cut trees to the public.
On a choose-and-cut basis, which is always a less expensive way to buy, trees are going for $3 to $4 a foot in the area, he said.
The Christmas tree custom, now a $1 billion a year industry in the United States and growing at a 2.5 percent annual clip, was popularized in 18th century Germany when families would gather to decorate the "Tannenbaum" on Christmas Eve.
By the early 20th century, U.S. ingenuity produced an artificial tree made out of goose feathers that was a Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog feature.
Fake trees, now much more real-looking, claim a substantial portion of the market - ranging from 33 percent, according to the tree growers association, to 50 percent, according to the National Ornaments and Electric Lights Association (NOEL).
Christmas trees now are grown in all 50 states and farmers harvest about 15 different varieties of fir, pine, spruce and cedar.