’Tis the season - Nothing says Christmas more than the tree
The only thing more exciting for children than waking up on Christmas morning may be the day when the kids help mom and dad pick out their Christmas tree.
Holli Lefevers, 8, and her siblings John, 11, and Violet, 13, were all smiles while walking with their parents among the Fraser firs at Christmas Tree City in front of State Mutual Stadium last week ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Christmas Tree City continues as a fixture in Rome for the past 41 years. Guy Rutland started the seasonal business in 1977 and has pretty much turned things over to his son, Judd, and grandson Sam to carry on.
They have been buying their trees from the same farm in Cashiers, N.C., the whole time.
Over at Lavender Mountain Hardware and Garden in Armuchee, Fraser firs have already transformed the garden center into a mini-forest. Customers have been reserving trees for several months and many of the larger trees were presold. Spencer and Virginia Brewer have been buying their Christmas trees from the same family farm in North Carolina for the past 19 years.
The trees are cut in North Carolina just a few days before they’re delivered to Lavender Mountain so that they are as fresh as possible.
“It is quite a process unpacking over 180 trees, and Christmas (coming) earlier and earlier,” Virginia Brewer said.
The Brewer’s put the trees in water as soon as they are delivered to maintain as high a level of freshness as possible.
The trees range from six-feet tall to 16-feet tall. Delivery and set-up services are also available for trees that are 10-feet tall and larger.
In addition, the garden center staff has made over a hundred red velvet bows and started filling orders for handmade Fraser fir wreaths.
Jim Morrison is once again renting Christmas trees from Cotton Block Pickers on East First Street. He got the idea for renting live trees from an episode of TV’s Shark Tank and this marks the third year of his C & M Christmas Tree Rental business.
He gets his live trees from a farm on Signal Mountain in Tennessee. Hemlock, spruce and pine are available and people can not only rent the trees, they can purchase them outright and plant them after the holidays. If they choose not to plant, they just call Morrison and he’ll pick them up, replant them at his property and then pull them up next year.
Wednesday Morrison had five trees left but said he can get more almost at a moment’s notice.
“I just take orders and when I run out all I have to do is call the farm and they’ll dig me whatever I want,” Morrison said. “I don’t try to keep too many until people start calling and telling me they want a tree delivered.”
Families that enjoy cutting their own tree can visit the Silver Creek Christmas Tree Farm on Rockmart Highway’s Spur 101. The farm offers white pines, Leyland and Murray cypress trees, and pre-cut North Carolina Fraser firs from six to twelve feet tall.