Christmas Spirit Rises as Trees Fall

Rachel Nelson, 4, and her sister Laura, 2, knelt beneath a 6-foot evergreen growing on a tree farm in Yorba Linda on Saturday and placed their hands firmly on the handle of a saw held by a farm owner.

In two minutes, the evergreen began to topple, and a beaming Rachel jumped to her feet and asked to help carry it to the car. “No, not this year,” her father said gently. “Maybe when you’re a little bigger.”

At tree farms throughout Orange County, similar scenes were being played out countless times Saturday. The Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally the busiest time of year at the county’s 22 Christmas tree farms, where families choose and chop down their own trees.

As Barry Nelson, 25, a computer salesman from Fullerton, toted his family’s tree down a dirt road on the Bailey-Findley Christmas Tree Farm to his car, he said he preferred cutting his own.

“That way I know it’s fresh and that it’ll keep past Christmas,” Nelson said. “If you get a tree from a lot, it’ll last for only about two weeks.”

Family Appeal

His wife, Brenda, added: “And you feel (at the tree farm) like you’re out in the forest chopping down your own Christmas tree. It kind of gets you into the Christmas spirit.”

Tree farms appeal mostly to families, said Becky Bailey-Findley, co-owner of the 3,000-tree farm. “Parents will bring their cameras out to take pictures of the kids with the trees, especially if it’s their first Christmas. And the kids have a lot of fun yelling, hiding and doing stuff like that.”

Down the hillside, Kristin Petty, 7, and her two sisters ran between rows of trees, calling for their father to hurry and look at a tree that had grabbed their fancy.

“We’ve been here about 45 minutes, and we’re still looking,” said a bemused David Petty, 36, a hospital technician from Placentia. “We’re looking for something about 8 feet tall, because that’s as high as our living room ceiling is.”

By midday Saturday, the farm had sold 50 trees, all of them 3 to 5 years old. But not everyone chose to take their tree home the same day.

“We opened last weekend, and most people like to come in the first two weekends that we’re open so that they can tag the trees they want, and come back later to have them cut,” Bailey-Findley said.

“This way they can guarantee that they’ll have a fresh tree that will last from four to six weeks,” she said. “All they’ve got to do is to give the trees some water and sugar.”

Most customers, co-owner Bill Bailey said, prefer to have farm employees do the cutting. But Drew McClelland, 27, of Fullerton, was an exception. “I like cutting down my own tree,” McClelland said, as he prepared to saw a 7 1/2-foot fir that cost $36.

McClelland said that after five years, he knows what kind of tree works best for him.

“It’s got to have good height,” McClelland said. “And it’s got to have fullness. You want the branches evenly layered so there are no holes. Finally, you want to make sure the tree is green and healthy looking. You don’t want it to have too many brown needles, and you don’t want it to be crooked--like growing at a 45-degree angle.”

At a Christmas tree farm in Anaheim, owner Alex deUlloa said the size of the crowd Saturday promised a good day for business.

But deUlloa, who has operated the 10-acre Santa’s Forest Christmas Tree Farm for 10 years, didn’t want to say how many of his 10,000 trees had been sold because “this is a very competitive business.”

DeUlloa, who also owns a tree farm in Downey, said it is a year-round job for him. “Maintaining a tree farm is just like farming any other crop,” DeUlloa said. “You’ve got to fertilize, spray, shear the trees, do pest control, deal with gophers and worry about root rot.”

Among deUlloa’s customers Saturday was Greg Martin, 22, who has been coming to tree farms ever since he can remember. Now that the Anaheim accountant has started his own family, he wants to continue the tradition.

He wandered through the tree groves with his wife, Tammy, 22, and son, Christopher, 18 months. The Martins ended up paying $36 for their 7-foot tree.

“It’s a little more than we would have paid at a lot, but I think it’s worth it,” Martin said. “When I was a kid, I remember waking up Christmas mornings smelling a fresh Christmas tree. I want the same thing for my son.”