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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Visit a NH Christmas Tree Farm and Find the Perfect Tree

The crispness of fall may still be in the air, but Christmas is just around the corner! Now is the perfect time to plan your trip to a New Hampshire Christmas tree farm and find the perfect tree for your family. 

With nearly 200 Christmas Tree farms, New Hampshire offers something for all tree shoppers – whether you want to meander the fields to select and cut your own tree or choose one from the lot, spend an hour or a make shopping for your Christmas tree a weekend excursion.
Some New Hampshire Christmas tree farms offer craft fairs, weekend lodging deals with area inns, and gift shops where you’ll find beautiful holiday wreaths, pretty tree ornaments, and unique gifts.
Check our New Hampshire Christmas tree farm map to find a tree farm near your home. Or make it a destination shopping experience – pick a farm a bit down the road and stay awhile.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Christmas Made Easy - Ordering your christmas tree and wreaths online

If you can’t make it to a New Hampshire Christmas tree farm this season, don’t fret – many tree farms offer mail order Christmas tree and holiday wreath sales. Check out the NH Christmas Tree Farm Directory to find a New Hampshire Christmas tree farm that will happily send a tree or wreath right to your doorstep, whether you live in New Hampshire or across the country.

Trees are cut fresh and packed in wax-lined cartons to keep them fresh and fragrant. 

Your home will be filled with the beautiful, warm scent of Christmas when your tree arrives! Wreaths are made right at the farms from fresh fir clippings and decorated to your liking.

Trees and wreaths are generally shipped via FedEx and can be ordered now for holiday delivery.

Support Local Tree Farms, Buy a NH Christmas Tree!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Christmas Tree Condos

Chances are, the farm fresh Christmas tree you’ll trim this holiday season had a full and varied life before coming into your home. The green space New Hampshire Christmas tree farms provide and preserve is essential habitat for countless wildlife species.

The manager of one New Hampshire Christmas tree farm describes his crop as "revolving condos" for birds, who return year after year to build nests in the larger trees, flocking to different parts of the farm as one year's crop is cut down to make way for another. 


Wild turkeys, moose, deer, bears, and countless other species also benefit from the habitat provided and maintained by tree farmers.

The neat, pretty rows of trees and preservation of open space provided by tree farms is an important part of New Hampshire's natural landscape for the people who live here and visit the state. Many New Hampshire Christmas tree farms include walking trails, and human visitors should always ask permission from the landowner before roaming a tree farm or other private property.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Trimming the Tree – A Christmas Tradition



Whether your family places a star, an angel, or some other ornament atop your Christmas tree each year is part of your own holiday decorating tradition. Although the ritual of using evergreens to represent eternal life in winter is older than Christianity, the custom of decorating evergreen trees as a symbol of the Christmas season started 500 years ago and became commonplace in the United States in the mid-19th Century.
The first record of a decorated tree is in 1510 in Latvia, where a tree was bedecked with roses, symbolic of the Virgin Mary. By the 1700s, evergreen branches were often adorned with apples, nuts, and colored strips of paper in Germany and Austria. Tree trimmers in France added lighted candles to Christmas trees.
In the 1800s, Christmas trees first appeared in the U.S., introduced by German settlers. By mid-century, trees cut from forests were being sold commercially. Fruit, nuts, toys, and glass ornaments were early popular tree decorations.
In 1848, Queen Victoria – whose mother was German – did much to popularize the decorated Christmas tree when a depiction of her gathered with her family around a tree hung with tinsel, beads, and candles appeared in the Illustrated London News (shown at right).
The first White House Christmas Tree, now a Presidential holiday tradition, was decorated in 1856 when New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce was President.
Artificial trees first appeared in the late 1800s, and in the early 20th century, some conservations encouraged people to use artificial trees as the natural supply of evergreen trees dwindled. President Theodore Roosevelt, a staunch environmentalist, refused to have a Christmas tree in his White House – until his sons, aided by famous conservationist Gifford Pinchot, convinced the President that when properly harvested, the cutting of Christmas trees was actually beneficial to forests.
The first Christmas tree farm was planted in 1901 in New Jersey, and during the 1930s President Franklin Roosevelt grew Christmas trees at his Hyde Park, New York, estate.
Tree trimming has evolved considerably in five centuries. With electricity, of course, came the easily lighted tree. Decorations now range from traditional tinsel, toys, and glass orbs to whimsical snowmen and Santas and ornaments depicting anything from tourist sites to cartoon characters.
Whether you string popcorn and cranberries for your tree or hang it with sparkling silver tinsel, use brightly colored lights or plain white, chances are your family has a special Christmas tree decorating tradition that brings the holiday spirit home.