Families across the state buy Christmas trees from western North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — When Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina, many Christmas tree farms, a major source of income in that part of the state, suffered major damage.

Some farms lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in trees. Still, Fraser Firs from western North Carolina made it out across the state and the country as many families came out Thanksgiving weekend looking for their perfect tree.

“It has to be full,” said Heather Hartman, visiting a tree lot with her family on Black Friday. “It has to be straight. My older girls just told me about the Christmas flair. It’s got to be a little bigger at the bottom.”

For Hartman, this is an annual tradition, but this year, the Booger Mountain tree lot her family picked their tree from is even more important. The trees come from Ashe County, part of western North Carolina hit hard by Hurricane Helene.

“I grew up in western North Carolina,” Hartman said. “I’m happy that this is helping them. I love coming here because I know they come from the mountains.”

Bentley Powell, who manages the Booger Mountain lot off Falls of Neuse Road, said many of customers are asking about western North Carolina and making sure their purchase is supporting farmers in the region. He said it is encouraging to see people wanting to help.

“The money will go right back to the mountains and go to help the people that need it,” Powell said. “Depending on where the damage was, a lot of the workers were displaced. There’s some of them still living in tents and campers in the cold weather.”

Booger Mountain’s farms out west did not lose many Christmas trees, but did see many other trees knocked down, blocking roads on the farm. The biggest issue Booger Mountain and many other growers faced was washed out roads in and out of the farm, creating issues for trucks that needed to get in to load the trees.

Damage to main roads like I-40 is also an issue for growers transporting their trees to the eastern part of North Carolina and beyond.

“They’ve been thrown extra obstacles as far as having to quickly get roads fixed,” said Jennifer Greene, the executive director of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association.

Farmers have worked with each other and NCDOT to get those roads fixed enough to get a tree to every family who wants one, including the Hartmans, in time to get it properly decorated.

“You can’t just put 100 lights around it and call it lit,” Hartman said. “It’s got to be 1,000.”

Christmas tree growers said they are seeing more people interested in buying a real tree, which is a positive sign, but they say those numbers need to keep growing over the next few years to help rebuild.