A few years back, when they were saving to buy their Perry Hall home, Charmaygne and Kevin Litz skimped on Christmas and canceled the big Dec. 24 party they held every year for family and friends. Never again, Charmaygne vowed.
So this year, with money tight and the economy seeming to crumble around them, the Litz family did cut back. Charmaygne and Kevin won't be giving gifts to each other. But other things are non-negotiable: that huge Christmas Eve bash and the fresh tree at the center of it.
"It means a lot to us to have the real tree, the smell of Christmas," she said yesterday as her husband secured a 9-foot Douglas fir in the bed of their pickup. "We consider a real tree symbolic of our Christmas."
The Litzes weren't going without, but Helen Winter, the 80-year-old proprietor of the Frostee Tree Farm in Perry Hall - where the Litzes have cut down their trees for 15 years - said tough economic times have trickled down to her business. She says business is running about half of what it was last December, and she thinks financial worries are keeping some of her usual customers away. "The economy's got people," agreed Paul Stiffler, who owns the farm with Winter.
Some shoppers are opting this year for smaller trees instead of the biggest their homes can handle. More people are asking about prices up front (prices at Frostee are $45 and up). Some are balking. One family of five unloaded from its van only to get right back in after learning what a tree would cost. Another family fought with Winter for more than an hour over a tree they had already cut down before she finally gave in to a discounted price. At times, it sure didn't feel like Christmas.
Not every tree farm is suffering. Bill Underwood, who runs Pine Valley Christmas Trees in Elkton and whose daughter is treasurer of the Maryland Christmas Tree Association, said he has spoken to other growers and that sales have surprised her.
"They seem to be having a pretty decent year," he said. "I thought it might have been down."
Live Christmas trees are a $1.3 billion-a-year business. Rick Dungey, a spokesman for the National Christmas Tree Association outside St. Louis, said the news he is hearing shows that "the economy doesn't have any impact on tree sales."
"People who want a tree are going to get a tree. Period," he said. "It's a tradition people aren't willing to give up."
