Bringing Agriculture Home for the Holidays
December 13, 2025
| Friends, Since my first day on the job, I’ve had a little infographic above my desk to help me remember the top ag commodities in North Carolina. I was looking up at it this morning and realized most of North Carolina’s top products are on full display during the holidays. Turkey is an obvious one at Thanksgiving, but on my cheat sheet, I also see other types of poultry, ham, eggs, sweet potatoes, and beef that are all not only produced in North Carolina but are produced in large quantities. In the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping and party planning, it is easy to forget that all of these products are produced right down the road from us. Next week, I want to dive more into your holiday dinner table (or lunch table if, like my husband and me, you like to eat early and have time to relax the rest of the day). But this week, I want to focus on Christmas trees and make my case for always buying a real tree instead of opting for artificial. —————————————————————————————————— One of my favorite sights in the North Carolina mountains is the Christmas tree farms, with trees growing in perfect rows up in the hills. The North Carolina Christmas Tree Association has a great page dedicated to the history of their association and of Christmas trees in the state, and cites that 3 million Christmas trees are cut in the state every year. It takes an average of 7 years to grow a Christmas tree, but for the taller trees, that growing time can be up to 15 years! Growing a real Christmas tree for someone’s living room (or in many years, for North Carolina farmers, the White House) is a real investment of time, labor, land, and love. Because you’re reading this Dispatch, I assume you’re a fan of agriculture, and that this pitch about buying a real Christmas tree isn’t going to be a hard sell, but I think it’s a fun conversation to have. My best friend texted me this week asking if I still buy a real Christmas tree. She lives in a condo in Ft Lauderdale and was weighing the cost/benefit of buying a real tree and bringing it up and down 12 floors or just unpacking a fake tree and packing it back up at the end of the season. I texted back an emphatic “of course I still buy a real Christmas tree.” To me, there is no other kind. I love the smell of a real tree. I love the semi-stressful drive from the lot to my home with a tree that is too large for my short bed Chevy. I love the challenge of setting up the tree stand and hoping no one notices if our tree is a little crooked again this year. I love inviting nature into my home for this season, especially when it is freezing, and most of the other trees have no leaves. So yes, I am a big real tree gal. The strongest argument for the real Christmas tree is that by buying one, you are supporting American farmers. It may be easier for some of us to store an artificial Christmas tree, but that is missing the whole point of the season. Christmas is about doing things we don’t normally make time to do, like driving to pick out a tree, decorating it, and all that it entails, and lifting others up around us. This Christmas season, I am encouraging all of my non-ag friends to lift up American farmers and buy real trees. Don’t we already buy enough stuff from China anyway (80% of artificial Christmas trees are manufactured in China)? If you have a tree you’re proud of, I’d love to see a photo of it. Pro tip: skip the normal souvenirs on vacation and grab a new ornament when you travel. Now your real Christmas tree is an annual reminder of where you’ve been and how you can come home with those memories. Best regards, |
 |
| Tori Rumenik Executive Director, North Carolina Ag Partnership |