Christmas trees, whether artificial or natural, have always played an integral role in Christmas celebrations everywhere. Some might argue that it isn’t complete without its presence. Who could blame them? With its various sizes, ornaments, lights, and all. One can’t help but be taken aback by its breathtaking beauty and its majesty. It’s genuinely one of the elements that “help to make the season bright,” as a popular Christmas song would say.
With the Holiday season kicking in full gear coupled with this new normal, the country faces another shortage. Thanksgiving brought us statewide turkey shortages, and now that we approach the Christmas season, we are now thrust into a Christmas tree shortage — both artificial and real ones. No exceptions here, so we better stretch those creative muscles pronto.
The reason for it all, though, is the double whammy of climate change and supply chain woes that have been ravaging the country ever since. Examples of this are the rising cost of labor and transportation costs, not to mention the extreme heat we felt last summer, which is deemed detrimental to the growth of these beautiful creatures.
The cherry on this sad cake would be the fires all over the place, which have crippled Pacific Northwestern farms, one of the country’s significant producers of live trees.
Their plastic counterparts have also had their share of woes. Cargo ships carrying Chinese artificial trees have a more challenging time unloading in west coast ports, thus causing reroutes to take the longer road via the Panama Canal. As a result of this, delivery times have doubled.
To say that we didn’t see this coming is an understatement because this has been a long-time brewing. Last year, we can trace its roots when the sparse trees either sold out earlier than usual or held high astronomical prices. Despite that, there were still 94 million homes that erected Christmas trees. The breakdown is as follows, 85% were synthetic while the rest opted for the real ones, with the demand for these beauties growing each year and problems sprouting everywhere. We are expected to get a slightly worse encore of last year.
Here’s a quick rundown: as per our nationwide experts, The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) reported that we could see the plastic variety quadruple in price. Whereas for the live ones, The Christmas Tree Association relays that there will be a 5% to 10% increase from the previous year’s price tag.
No matter what tree you prefer, this news is a massive blow to us all. Though that may be the case, this should not be viewed as a bad omen for the upcoming Christmas season. In fact, this is a simple message from God that these trees are not the real reason for the season. No matter how beautiful or jaw-dropping they could be, you won’t find any substantial meaning there. They are all but decorations at the end of the day. What matters most and is deserving of all our attention is Jesus and his arrival into our lives one cold night in Bethlehem almost 2000 years ago.
