A Holiday Tale: The Christmas Tree Wars
Chain retailers are selling farm-fresh evergreens—but don't cut mom and pop out of the business just yet


The sale of fresh-cut Christmas trees may not rack up the billions spent on clothing or electronics at this time of year, but Americans did buy 27 million holiday conifers last year, dropping $976 million in the process. (And that number doesn’t include fake trees—real trees usually outsell the fake ones by a margin of 3 to 1, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.)