(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Ken’s Christmas Trees has been busy selling spruces in Melrose Park and Bridgeview since the week before Thanksgiving.
“People are buying more trees earlier than they have in past years,” said owner David Guenther.
While many tree retailers are expecting another year of strong sales, the expectation is that it’ll cost buyers a bit more in 2022.
A premium Fraser Fir, for example, would have cost between $80 and $100 just a few years ago. Now, that same tree runs from $100 – $150.
Guenther said the price hike is partly due to a nationwide shortage of Christmas trees.
“Fifteen years ago, there was a huge oversupply of trees, and the planting numbers were adjusted to correct that oversupply,” he said. “So, there's comparatively a lot less trees on the market now than there were years’ past.”
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The other reason for a pricier purchase? Inflation.
The cost of fuel, materials and labor have all gone up, Guenther said.
“In years’ past, you could hire local people, and you could pay $12 to $13 an hour, and now it's very hard to find anybody that wants to do hard work like this,” said Guenther. “So a lot of it is hired out, migrant type of situations, and it's $25 to $26 an hour to secure your labor.”
Some customers might be caught off guard by the higher cost of a Christmas tree, to which Guenther offered this response:
“If you buy bread every week and it goes up a nickel a week, you don't remember what you paid for it a year ago. If you buy one Christmas tree a year, and say ‘last year I paid this.’ Well, you get the whole bite of a year's worth of inflation in one shot.”
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