Maryland
Cut your own Christmas tree at this Maryland family-owned farm – WTOP News
The day after Thanksgiving is a “busy, busy day” for Jerry, the “fresh-cut guy,” running the chain saw at Butler’s Orchard farms in Montgomery County, Maryland.
(WTOP/Heather Gustafson)
WTOP/Heather Gustafson
(WTOP/Heather Gustafson)
WTOP/Heather Gustafson
(WTOP/Heather Gustafson)
WTOP/Heather Gustafson
(WTOP/Heather Gustafson)
WTOP/Heather Gustafson
(WTOP/Heather Gustafson)
WTOP/Heather Gustafson
(WTOP/Heather Gustafson)
WTOP/Heather Gustafson
(WTOP/Heather Gustafson)
WTOP/Heather Gustafson
(WTOP/Heather Gustafson)
WTOP/Heather Gustafson
With Thanksgiving over, you might start to see more cars topped with Christmas trees hitting the streets.
The day after Thanksgiving is a “busy, busy day” for Jerry, the “fresh-cut guy,” running the chain saw at Butler’s Orchard farms in Montgomery County, Maryland.
“I love it out here, this is the best time of year for us. I get all the sap all over me and smell like Christmas trees for days,” said Jerry.
“You can’t have a candle that fakes the smell. It’s just not the same,” said Ben Butler, one of the brothers who works at Butler’s Orchard family-owned and operated farms.
Ben is part of the third generation of Butlers to work on the land. He now enjoys watching other families experience the joy of cutting down their own Christmas trees — trees he spent years growing.
“It’s a piece of the Christmas puzzle that you have to have. The tree, of course, is so important, but the family memory and the experience of going out to the field looking through thousands of trees to pick the one that you guys can agree on the most,” Butler said. “That’s a thing that your kids won’t forget.”
Emily let her husband do the heavy manual labor when her family traveled to the farm to grab their own Christmas tree to cut down.
“We didn’t want to just show up at a store and walk away with a tree. We wanted to pick it out ourselves,” she said.
Finding a one-of-a-kind Christmas tree is easy at Butler’s Orchard.
Once you grab a provided hand axe and cut down your chosen tree, the crew works to smooth the base of the tree down for the stand. Workers wrap the trees and tie them safely on top of your vehicle, so no tree gets left behind on the highway.
“We have people [come] from Pennsylvania, Virginia, D.C. and all over Maryland,” Jerry said.
You can visit the farm and cut your own tree every weekend until Christmas. The 40-acre farm also sells precut trees every day of the week.
“I just love the sense of freedom it gives me to go out here,” Emily’s 8-year-old daughter shared after picking out the family tree.
You can visit the Butler’s Orchard website for more details on how to reserve your tree-cutting spot.