Jones Family Farms Celebrates 75 Years Of Cut-Your-Own Christmas Trees

SHELTON, CT — As Thanksgiving approaches and thoughts of turkey begin to subside, many people in Connecticut will soon be wondering where they should get their Christmas tree.

At Jones Family Farms in Shelton, however, Christmas trees have been on the minds of the owners and staff throughout the entire year.

Boasting over 200 acres of Christmas trees, from fraser and balsam firs to blue spruces and white pines, Jones has welcomed guests to their farm to cut down their own tree each holiday season for 75 years. This year's tree season began Saturday and will continue through most of December.

According to Christiana Jones, the farm's director of hospitality operations, the life of a Christmas tree farmer is a year-round position.

"All of us here at the farm, we love Christmas tree season," Jones said. "It's really fun and festive, and we all enjoy it just as much as the guests coming, so it's kind of fun."

Jones is one of the oldest harvest-your-own tree farms in Connecticut, a tradition that first began in 1947. At that time, most of the trees were sold the week before Christmas.

"Now we're selling more trees probably the week before Thanksgiving than we sold those early years the week before Christmas," Jones said.

While most customers begin thinking about a Christmas tree in November, the process of growing one for them to cut down actually begins 10-15 years earlier depending on its size. That means most of the trees cut down this year were likely planted around 2012.

Additionally, the farm has already planted trees this year that will likely be cut down in 2032.

"People sometime forget about that piece of it," Jones said, "how long forward-thinking you have to be of where you are planting something, and that it becomes a healthy, living thing that we take care of and steward for almost a decade."

Planting season typically begins in March or April once the ground starts thawing from winter. The trees are first grown in a nursery for about four years, then moved out to the fields before they awaken from dormancy and break bud.

"They're all hand-planted," Jones said, "so for weeks people are just planting several thousand trees a day to reach that mark before it gets too warm."

This year, the Jones family expects to sell about 7,500 to 10,000 Christmas trees, however that number is heavily dependent on the weather this winter.

"Certainly there's a lot of things in society that impact when people get a tree, but I would say the biggest factor we run across is the weather of the weekends," Jones said. "We're humble about it, because we have to know we can do absolutely nothing about it."

While Jones sells a number of "pick-your-own" crops throughout the year, including strawberries, blueberries and pumpkins, the Christmas tree season is their busiest from an operational standpoint due to the small number of weekends guests typically buy a tree.

The farm implemented a reservation system in 2020 to keep crowds under control in light of the coronavirus crisis. After receiving great feedback from guests, they decided to keep the system in place the past few tree seasons, Jones said.

Reservations are only needed on the farm's busiest weekends, Nov. 19 through Dec. 11, as well as the Friday after Thanksgiving. According to Jones, a large majority of guests typically plan to get a tree with their family in late November or the first week of December.

"It has moved up at our farm," Jones said. "I think in society, people are starting to decorate earlier for [Christmas], and so we have to have more things ready earlier. We used to kind of phase into it."

For those who do get their tree in November, Jones recommends placing it in a room that is not too warm and inside a tree stand that can hold at least a gallon of water, possibly more depending on its size.

Making a fresh cut at the bottom of the tree before setting it up so the pores can open up is also key, Jones said.

While Christmas tree farming is a lot of hard work, requiring many moving parts throughout the year, the Jones family cherishes being a big part of so many families' enjoyment of the holiday season by providing a festive centerpiece that only took a decade to get there.

That pride is most evident each year when the extended Jones family gathers together for Christmas brunch, during which they will toast all the families that are sitting around a tree from their farm and the memories that were made underneath each one.

"It is not lost on us at all," Jones said. "We are very moved by it, and that's what makes the work very easy for us. Farming can be long...because you're taking care of living things, but the reward is not only where we live, but knowing that people take a piece of this with them. It's very meaningful and very motivating."