Christmas Trees

Get lost while finding the perfect tree

At present there is the remnants of a Christmas Tree maze -- 4 miles of spaghetti trail scribbled into 16 acres. The idea was that each block of the jigsaw puzzle would be one species of tree. It would take about 8,000 trees to fill the maze. I started this as a way to use up trees that weren't pretty enough for retail.

The numbers were discouraging, and in the end, I decided that I had enough to do:

With no lighting on the trees, sales are limited to four weekends a year -- the last weekend in November and the first three weekends in December.
Few people would arrive before 10 a.m. You don't want anyone to arrive after 3 p.m. There's only an hour of light left.
You need to have a reasonable number of saws and toboggans for them to venture out.
You need to help them tie their tree onto their car, providing line for them to do this.

The way to make this really work is to make the farm a winter destination. Get people to come for more than a Christmas tree.

Fire for people to warm up.
Concession stand with coffee, hot chocolate, cookies, marshmallows, at least, and possibly burgers and hotdogs. This could be very cool if NOT done in the typical trailer, but rather as an open platform cooking area such as is done in outfitter's camps. May have difficulties with permits for this.
Sledding hill. The hill isn't quite steep enough for good toboggan rides. It would be necessary to pack a run. Or multiple runs.
Skating pond.

Personnel

To run this you would need people for the following roles.

Gatekeeper. This person collects entrance fee, directs parking. Entrance fee includes a certain number of concession tickets, and a christmas tree ticket. The latter can be redeemed if no suitable tree was found. This is the only person who handles money.
Fire marshal. This person controls the fire keeping it burning at the appropriate level, and keeping small children from getting roasted. This is the obvious location for anything wrong, so this person needs to be good at reacting to emergencies. At minimum he/she needs to have a solid first aid course. Fire marshal and Chuck Wagon can be covered by one person when things are really slow, or for quick breaks.
Wagon master. Ideally would be a horse and wagon (outsource?) or even better a red sleigh pulled by reindeer; but failing that, the small tractor and a wagon or sled on runners. Haybale seating. A circuit outside the maze is done every 20 minutes. People and get on/off at any point on the circuit, and walk into the maze.
Hill Supervisor. If the sledding run is on packed trails, then there must be enough spacing to prevent collisions at the bottom. (You see this issue at water slides.)
Chuck Wagon operator. (Outsource?) You may find that the Fire Marshall and Cook can be the same person. (You cannot cook on the same fire as people warm at.)
Troubleshooter. That's you. Cars get stuck. Cars need to be jumped. Someone cuts their hand with a saw. You also fill in when staff need to run to the washroom.

For a 4 weekend program you need to hire your team for 4 weekends plus one training day. If they work from 10 to 4 and grab lunch on the fly it will be 5 people * 9 days * 6 hours = 270 man hours. At $15/hour that's about $4000.

Potential problems

There are a few items that may puncture this idyllic balloon.

Liability insurance. This is no longer just a farm operation.
Rest room facilities. Porta-potties? You may have facilities elsewhere, but the optimum location for the winterfest is not at the tree yard, and the summer restrooms likely are not heated all winter. This may mean that your restroom solution in general needs to be a portable one that you can move around at different times of the year.
Finding personnel. High school students? People who want some extra cash for Christmas?
People who quit halfway through. Pay minimum wage for the season. But offer a $3/hr bonus to everyone who comes to every scheduled shift. PLUS they don’t get paid for the training day unless they come to all their shifts. Also: train a couple of extras, schedule overlapping 4 hour shifts for the day. This gives you a pool of people who can fill in.
Communication. Will need a bunch of walkie-talkies so that various people can talk to the troubleshooter.

Economics:

If you sell 50 trees a weekend with a $80/car entry fee you have a cash flow of $16,000 on entrance fees alone. You will also have some costs associated with the concessions, but they should be covered by extra concession ticket sales. Is this worth it? 50 trees is a new customer on the average showing up every 12 minutes. But it won't work like that. Half of them will show up between 10:30 and 11:30, with another quarter in the half hour before and after. Most will stay for about 3 hours, unless the weather is bitter cold, or if there is no snow. Indeed, if there is no snow, you may sell all 200 trees in the last week in November. Don't expect that, but have a plan for that.

So you will need to have, probably 30 bush saws to loan out and lose.

In addition to this, you need to chuck some resources at the maze in the summer. Christmas trees need to be pruned -- I think starting at age 4, and every couple years after that. You have replacement trees to plant, but I have had success even as late as November transplanting into the maze.

Is it worth it? It’s a small factor in the scheme of things. And you have your own family preps for Christmas. Fall farm activities often run into November, so December is one of the few really slow periods in the year.

Flip side: It gives another time frame for brand awareness. People will know you are there, and so may come back for their apple tree later.

This ramps up slowly. Right now there are only a few hundred trees in the maze, and you need to add 300 a year to have some selection. You don’t have to make up your mind right away.

Typical Pine

Lodgepole Pine in our front yard.

Got something to say? Email me: sfinfo@sherwoods-forests.com

Interesting? Share this page. Share

Want to talk right now? Talk to me: (8 am to 8 pm only, please) 1-780-848-2548

Back to Top

Sherwood's Forests is located about 75 km southwest of Edmonton, Alberta. Please refer to the map on our Contact page for directions.

A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.