A Christmas tree shortage in the wider world hasn't been mirrored in Prince Albert this year. (Facebook/Lefebvre Christmas Tree Farm)

By Rob Mahon

Christmas Tree Season

No shortage here: Christmas tree sales start early, hold steady in Prince Albert

Dec 15, 2021 | 12:00 PM

If you’ve been waiting to go out and buy a natural tree for Christmas, you might not want to wait too much longer.

The season started early for Gaudet Trees, and people have been starting to pick them up since before the calendar turned to December.

Despite an industry shortage of trees in the wider world, there’s been no such shortage in Prince Albert, and people celebrating Christmas have been taking advantage of the numbers.

“Sales have been strong, it’s to be expected,” said Ray Gaudet, owner of Gaudet Trees. “A shortage in the industry is a different story from us in Prince Albert locally. In the industry there’s a shortage for the last three or four years coming on, and that’s not going away.”

According to Gaudet, people have not only been buying the trees but buying them early. Perhaps it’s because this year there will be more Christmas gatherings because of a lack of COVID-related restrictions, but whatever the case, people were out for their trees early this time around.

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“The last two years we’ve opened up the last full week of November on the Saturday,” Gaudet said. “It’s non-stop for two full weeks. For the past more than two decades, people would come in and buy trees all the way up until easily the 15^th, 16^th, 17^th of December, then things would start to slow down from there.”

As for whether a less-restricted Christmas has led to more sales, Gaudet couldn’t say. He doesn’t keep too close of an eye on annual figures, but he knows this year does feel closer to a normal one.

“It just seems everything is normal, just more advanced,” said Gaudet. “People come in earlier to the lot and pick a tree to go home with it.”

So far, the most popular trees have proven to be the ones that Gaudet has done some chopping work on himself, including docking the tops. From there, he does work on the side portions of the tree so it will grow to a certain shape.

“We clip off the side branches annually,” Gaudet said. “When we do that, instead of the tree continually pointing outwards, we start to make it fork. It starts to increase the density and people want a dense tree.”

Gaudet added he only has three of those clipped trees left on the lot, though he still has plenty of natural ones.

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rob.mahon@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @RobMahonPxP