Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today with an updated version of a post that first ran way back on December 2, 2011. At the time, one of my husband’s two retirement businesses was a cut-your-own Christmas tree farm. We were open for eight years and probably would have continued to grow and sell our trees longer if it hadn’t been for escalating liability insurance rates and the fact that we were starting to slow down as we entered our seventies. Since it’s that time of year again, here’s a look back. Enjoy!
December on a Maine Christmas Tree Farm
During the month of December, I don’t get much writing done. ‘Tis the season, which in our case means Christmas tree season. My husband and I run an organic cut-your-own Christmas tree farm.
they start at $45 these days
A decade before he retired, he decided to plant balsam fir trees on part of our twenty-five acre lot in the Mystic Valley. You probably won’t find Mystic Valley on a map, but it runs along U. S. Rt. 2 between Wilton and Dixfield and we’re right in the middle of it.
baby trees in foreground
Growing Christmas trees is a ten-year plan in the truest sense, because it takes ten years for one to grow big enough to sell. Two years ago, our first crop was ready. At the same time, my third mystery in the Liss MacCrimmon series, A Wee Christmas Homicide was published. It had a nice Christmas tree on the cover. It seemed only natural to open up my box of author copies and offer a free autographed book to the first twenty-five customers to purchase a tree. We also lured folks in with complimentary hot cocoa and candy canes.
That first year, we curtained off the front of one side of the garage and called it our “gift shop,” offering the books, the treats, and an assortment of the handcrafted wooden objects my husband makes in his post-retirement second career as a custom woodworker, everything from battery-operated clocks and decorative little keepsake boxes to cradles and chessboards. We had a good season, but it was darned cold in that gift shop. The second year, we smartened up and curtained off the front half of my husband’s heated workshop instead. The inventory expanded, too, since he had begun to specialize in two specific wooden items, magic wands and cat-and-child-proof jigsaw-puzzle tables. We also began to sell another local product, produced by neighbors in the village of East Dixfield, Mystic Valley Maples—real Maine maple syrup.
Of course we mostly sell Christmas trees. Our entire season lasts less than a month, from the Saturday after Thanksgiving until the Sunday before Christmas. Hours are daily 10 A.M. until 4 P.M. or it’s too dark to see (There are no lights out in the fields).
good thing we have a big dooryard for customers to park in
There’s a lot of setting up to do besides the shop. There’s the motion sensor attached to a buzzer to alert us when a vehicle pulls into the dooryard. There’s a hand-cranked netting machine, to make it possible for the tree to actually fit into the trunk of a car or the back of a truck. There are signs to put up, both informative (cash or checks only; no credit cards) and to keep little kids from falling into Moosetookalook Pond, which isn’t yet frozen solid. It measures a whole six feet in diameter at its widest point but it’s deep enough to be dangerous to small fry.
My husband swears it isn’t why he grew his beard when he retired, but he does now bear a certain resemblance to jolly old St. Nick, especially when he comes out to greet customers wearing a red sweatshirt and a Santa Claus hat. I wear a green sweatshirt with Christmas trees on it. I pretty much stay in the gift shop to write the receipts and collect the money. Did I mention that it’s cold outside? I do venture out when our favorite type of customer shows up—parents taking their children to cut down a Christmas tree for the very first time. I wish I could bottle that excitement. Little kids get a real kick out of picking out the tree, helping to cut it down, and dragging it back in on a tarp. We let them run the netter, too.
When we shut down just before Christmas, the season is over for another year, except, of course, for the next round of planting, pruning, and mowing between the rows. The husband does all that. I go back into my office to write more books.
Author’s note: One of those books was a second Christmas mystery in the Liss MacCrimmon series, Ho-Ho-Homicide. It should come as no surprise that it is set on a Christmas tree farm. This blog was also reprinted in I Kill People for a Living: A Collection of Essays by a Writer of Cozy Mysteries (2021).
Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.
