Christmas tree farmers in western North Carolina are still rebuilding from last year’s devastating Hurricane Helene, but growers are optimistic about business and the overall strength of their industry in the region.

“There’s still a lot of recovery that needs to happen, but we’re in much better shape than we were this time last year … sales are good,” Kevin Gray, owner of Hickory Creek Farm Christmas Trees in Greensboro, said earlier this month, while the buying season was in full swing.

North Carolina is the nation’s second-largest Christmas tree producer, harvesting about 4m trees, mainly Fraser firs, annually, most grown in the western part of the state. As people all over the nation thrill to the twinkling lights and accumulating gifts under the boughs this festive season, few who buy a real tree may spare a thought for where it came from.

In October, 2024, Helene tore through the region, killing at least 95 people and causing widespread damage to homes, farms, roads, land and infrastructure. Officials estimated that the storm, at one stage a category 4, caused about $125m in losses of ornamental nurseries and Christmas trees alone.

A year later, while full recovery for some farms is still distant, many growers said their sales before the holidays were lively.

At Avery Farms, a 200-year-old family operation in Avery county, Helene ripped out about 80,000 of their Christmas trees, wrecked fields, equipment and buildings, and destroyed the home of manager Graham Avery’s parents.

That fall, the family sold what they could to the customers: a limited number of trees, wreaths, boughs and improvised tabletop trees fashioned from salvaged tops.

This year has been focused on rebuilding. Avery’s parents’ home was rebuilt with help from “lots of people donating their time” and they moved back in just a month ago. The family bulldozed damaged fields, fertilized the soil and planted about 20,000 trees this spring, a long-term project to regain pre-Helene output, as Christmas trees take from six to 12 years to mature.

“It’s going to be a while, but that’s the whole game that we play doing Christmas trees. It’s a very long-term investment,” Avery said. “We are set up to do it, and we will continue to do it.”

Even with significantly reduced inventory, Avery said, this season’s sales have been “very, very good” and the farm has doubled its wreath output and is shipping them nationwide.

“With what inventory we do have, we’ve had no issue selling,” Avery said.

Jennifer Greene, executive director of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association, said the industry remained strong despite the devastation to some growers.

The 2025 growing season also offered some relief. “We had a great spring with April rainfall,” she said, noting the trees “have actually had a great growing season”.

“We’re in the middle of a great season, we’re happy to not have a hurricane and we’ve had good weather for harvest. So things are looking good,” she said.

Dee Clark, owner of Christmas Corner and C&G Nursery in Avery county, shared similar optimism, despite retail sales plummeting last year when a road washed out and remained closed until summer.

“Early indications look promising,” Clark, 63, said, earlier in December. He added that his son had developed social-marketing efforts to boost sales.

A third-generation grower, Clark said Helene destroyed much of his farm’s infrastructure and damaged roads and culverts, triggering landslides that cost about 1,000 trees and stripped vital nutrients from the soil.

Clark, who said the storm “almost put us out of business”, has focused on repairs, replanting and restoring the land. He expects it will take years to replace lost trees, and knows many growers face a similar, long climb. But, he said: “The Christmas tree industry in western North Carolina as a whole is probably the best shape it’s ever been in as far as the supply of trees right now.”

At Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm, owner Sam Cartner said he felt fortunate no lives or homes were lost in the flooding, but said landslides destroyed up to 10,000 trees.

“We probably won’t ever be able to plant those areas back, because the topsoil slid off,” he said. “We’ll have to find other areas to plant if we recover that number of trees.”

The Cartners worked quickly, and made enough repairs to have a “relatively normal harvest” last fall, he said, despite the major damage to roads, bridges and culverts on the property.

One of their trees was even selected last year to be displayed at the White House.

For many in the region, the Cartners’ White House tree became a symbol of resilience. Jamie Bookwalter, an extension specialist at North Carolina State University, recalled attending its send-off ceremony in Avery county.

“That Christmas tree represented a lot of people problem-solving,” she said, “which I think is what this area of the country is kind of known for: resiliency, problem-solving and self-reliance.”

Will Kohlway IV, a Christmas tree production extension specialist also at NC State, said the Cartners’ ability to harvest and deliver the tree, despite everything the region had dealt with, exemplified “the spirit of the mountains and also Christmas tree growers”.

They called the tree “Tremendous”, he said, because “it was really a tremendous effort”.

Bookwalter visited some of the hardest-hit farms immediately following the storm. “Helene was a terrible event, but farming in general is just becoming more difficult as temperatures become more unpredictable and we get wetter periods – the wetter periods are wetter, the drier periods are drier,” she said. “We’re all just kind of learning day by day.”

She said researchers are working to develop trees more resilient to the changing climate.

Kohlway said that the public’s support for the region’s growers and farms had been “humbling”.

“Buying a tree supports a North Carolina farmer,” he said. Even if purchased at a big-box store, the tree, Bookwalter added, “really represents probably a pretty small farmer”.

Every holiday season, families flock to Main Street in Chickasha, Oklahoma, for its parade and dazzling light show. But it’s not just the brightly lit Christmas tree catching their attention — a nearly 50-foot-tall leg lamp is stealing the spotlight.

The giant statue, which officially reopened as a permanent attraction in November 2022, pays homage to the 1983 Christmas classic “A Christmas Story.” It’s inspired by one of the film’s iconic scenes, where Ralphie’s dad Mr. Parker gets the leg lamp as a “major award” for winning a newspaper crossword puzzle contest.

“When he pulled the leg lamp out of the box, I could not get that out of my mind. I mean, that was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” Tim Elliot, CEO of Standley Systems, a family-owned business technology company based in Chickasha, told “CBS Mornings.”

A few years ago, that scene made a lightbulb go off in Elliot’s head – put a giant leg lamp front and center on Main Street. 

The Chickasha Festival of Light with its 3.5 million twinkle lights and 170-foot-tall Christmas tree has frequently been named one of the best light shows in the country, bringing more than 250,000 visitors each year. But Elliot wanted to add something special that would draw people to Chickasha year-round. So, he pitched the quirky idea at a meeting for economic development.

“I pulled the leg lamp out and set it on the conference table, and I said, ‘How about a 100-foot leg lamp at the end of Main Street?’”

Attendees laughed and shrugged off the idea, suggesting it was never going to happen. But Elliot was determined. He raised more than $1 million, and in 2021, the statue went up.

But like the movie, the lamp kicked off controversy. 

Jim Cowan, Chickasha economic development director and president of the Chickasha Chamber of Commerce, said attorneys representing Warner Brothers sent a letter to the Chickasha Community Foundation that essentially read, “cease and desist, destroy it, tear it down.”

“We were very determined. We weren’t going to let that happen. That if we had to go and battle in the courts we would because we felt like we did things the right way,” Cowan said.

The group explained to Warner Brothers that they were not profiting off the lamp because they don’t charge admission, and a neighboring gift shop sells licensed products from the film. Elliot says the group hasn’t heard from the entertainment company in about a year and a half.

That’s good news for visitors – like John Prock from Washington, D.C., who drove from his parents’ house in Oklahoma to visit the giant leg lamp.

“My parents mentioned it, so I came down to visit them, and they said, ‘Well, while you’re here, let’s go see the leg lamp.’ So we literally hopped in the car, drove almost three hours to get here, and here we are,” Prock said.

The lamp has become a beacon for tourists and businesses. 

“Tourism is at an all time high and a lot of that can be traced one way or another to a leg lamp,” Cowan said.

Chet Hitt grew up just 20 miles away before moving out west and becoming a successful business developer. Now, he’s back home – and has big plans, investing millions in the town.He has plans to develop a business park and renovate downtown, as more and more people come to town to see the lamp. 

“You drive down this little town and you see kids playing and the community behind things and the support. It just really they buy into what’s here,” Hitt said, adding that he hopes to see continued growth in the town over the next decade.

• A Simpsonville woman was sentenced to 40 years in prison for sexually abusing her three-year-old daughter.
• An inmate already serving a 30-year sentence received an additional 40 years for his role in the abuse.
• The case was discovered during a state-wide crackdown on contraband cellphones in prisons.
• Prosecutors described the case as “evil” and one of the worst they have ever prosecuted.

A Simpsonville woman was sentenced to four decades in prison for what prosecutors called one of the most evil things a mother could do to a child.

Circuit Court Judge Patrick Fant III sentenced 26-year-old Abbygale El-Dier to 40 years.

Her boyfriend, Jacob Lance, 29, who was already serving a 30-year term for a 2015 Anderson County manslaughter case, was sentenced to 40 additional years for accessory to criminal sexual misconduct with a minor.

The case came to light after South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson launched a crackdown on contraband in state prisons. Jail staff discovered that El-Dier had sent Lance dozens of videos and photos showing her sexually abusing her three-year-old daughter. The three-year-old isn’t related to Lance.

Cortney Rea, assistant solicitor with the 13th Circuit, called it the worst case she has ever prosecuted, citing the severe trauma suffered by the toddler.

“I have tried to put this into words, but how vile these acts are, words fall short. Inhuman, disgusting, horrific, but what the defendant really did to her child is just evil,” Rea said. “Everyone who has touched this case has been negatively affected by their perversion. What this defendant (El-Dier) did to this child is incomprehensible.”

El-Dier also received a five-year prison sentence for first-degree sexual exploitation. Lance was also sentenced to three years for sexual exploitation of a minor. The three-year sentence will run concurrently with his previous sentence.

According to prosecutors, El-Dier and Lance messaged each other from August 2022 to August 2023, where the two talked about abusing the child. The pair also spoke about the idea of Lance abusing the child, along with drugging them and other children. Law enforcement became aware of the pair’s conversations after someone tipped the Simpsonville Police Department about the messages.

After the tip, law enforcement arrested El-Dier, and agents from the Attorney General’s Office obtained Lance’s phone.

El-Dier pled guilty in July, and Lance pled guilty in November.

‘Suffered abuse’

In March 2018, both Jacob and his brother, Ernest Lance, were found guilty of beating Todd Cantlay to death before setting his Pendleton home on fire. Jacob Lance is serving his 30-year prison sentence at the Lee County Correctional Facility in Bishopville.

El-Dier’s attorney, Greenville-based Will Hellams, and her family accused Lance of manipulating and psychologically abusing her.

“We will always regret not catching on to how truly severe the situation was every day for the rest of our lives. We are so disappointed that our granddaughter will have to grow up knowing about these horrific events. The therapy she will have to go through will never be enough,” the victim’s advocate said in the hearing.

Lance told Judge Fant a different story during the hearing, in which he claimed El-Dier initiated the dialogue about the abuse and that he felt blackmailed to continue the conversations. He said if he didn’t, she would cut off communication and potentially alert the Department of Corrections about his contraband cellphones.

“I felt forced to go along with it because I didn’t want her calling a search team and turning it all around on me to make it seem like I’m some creep,” Lance said.

Contraband crackdown by AG’s Office

This case, along with several others, is part of an initiative by the Attorney General’s Office to punish the possession of contraband cellphones.

The State Grand Jury investigated and indicted each case in the initiative.

El-Dier’s family said they reported Lance to the South Carolina Department of Corrections multiple times, but he would have several phones at a time and would switch between them to gain access to El-Dier.

David Fernandez, assistant deputy for the Attorney General’s Office, said the detailed conversations between El-Dier and Lance about the daughter’s abuse were only the tip of the iceberg in comparison to the things El-Dier did to her own daughter.

“What has been provided today, your honor, is simply a snippet of the luminous conversation between the two. These were no fantasies; these were actions that were acted out in real time by El-Dier for the benefit of Jacob Lance,” Assistant Deputy Attorney General David Fernandez said during the hearing.