For more than 50 years, the Barrett family have been growing cut-your-own Christmas trees on 25 acres north of Cobourg, Ont.
One of their first customers was the Ross family who came for a tree in 1962 — and have come back every year.
Susan Beer remembers there seemed to have been much more snow on the ground during those first tree-hunting expeditions with her mother and father. Her mother Colleen says in those days, artificial trees hadn’t been invented yet.
“Of course, a real tree at that time, that was what you had and that’s how you got it — go someplace and cut it,” recalls Colleen Ross.
As the Ross family was picking out their 55th tree at Barrett’s, Katie Simpson was there with her one-year-old son Easton, looking for their first.
She brought along her parents to help find the right tree. Like the Ross family, her dad Bob Watson can appreciate a Christmas tradition when he sees one.
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“Well, I guess hopefully, the start of a long tradition is coming up so every year, we’ll go and cut a tree down together,” Watson said.
The Barretts grow several species of evergreen to serve as Christmas trees including white, blue, black, Norway and Meyers spruce, white and Scotch pine and balsam fir.
Owner Diana Barrett says preparing a crop of Christmas trees for sale means taking the long view from planting to harvest.
“We plant seedlings every spring where a tree’s been cut, and then we let it grow and we prune them and mow around them and then in eight years, it will be about this tall and in another year or two, it will be an eight- or nine-foot tree,” Barrett said.
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