In the annual holiday battle between natural and artificial Christmas trees, the soil-grown variety has an extra advantage in these days of economic uncertainty: No tariffs.
Natural trees are either grown domestically or imported from Canada. New Hampshire alone has more than 270 Christmas-tree growers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Canadian imported trees are not subject to any import tariffs, unlike many other products from our northern neighbor.
This weekend marks the unofficial start to Christmas tree season.
“Once Black Friday hits, people pack away their turkeys and they really flip the switch to the Christmas season, holiday season,” said Brian Bowler, marketing director for Rocky’s Ace Hardware.
The store chain, which includes a location in Concord, imports its natural trees — about 100 for each of its 46 stores in the Northeast — from a firm in Nova Scotia. They’ve been doing business with that company, Northeast Tree, for years, Bowler said.
Nationally, U.S. tree farms cut some 14.5 million Christmas trees last year, while about 3 million were imported from Canada, mostly from Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces, according to federal figures.
Virtually all artificial trees, on the other hand, are imported from China.
“The artificial trees we’ve seen have been impacted by tariffs,” said Bowler.
Generally, about 60% of tree sales at the company’s stores are artificial, a number bolstered by technical variety, he said.
“You can get them pre-lit, a slim profile, all sizes. Or you can go high-end with frost, flocking, with color-changing LED lights or pattern-changing — lots of things,” he said.
It’s unclear whether tariff pricing will make a difference in people’s preferences.
“It’s really what the customer is looking for. Some may not like the mess of a real tree, want something that’s a little bit easier,” he said. “As a kid, I had artificial trees because my mother had allergies.”