CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As you get ready to put up Christmas decorations, you might find fewer options when buying a real Christmas tree this year.
West Valley Christmas Trees has been coming to Corpus Christi for the past 36 years, and owner Don Crandal says the drought from 2009 has been the biggest factor to the Christmas tree shortage.
"There truly is a scarcity of trees, especially in the 8-9, 9-10 range. Those would cover the years when the drought occurred and killed off the seedlings," says Crandal. He says this is common across the country, but here in town, the demand for these trees are fairly high. "Nowadays, the mainstay tree is a 7-8 footer, and here in the Corpus Christi area there's a huge demand for 8-9, 9-10's and up to 12 or 14-footers."
Because of the holiday demand, tree farms began cutting down their trees around the 6-7, or 7-8 foot range, says Crandal. But despite the lack of taller Christmas trees, Crandal says sales in Corpus Christi are actually doing well,
"this is a very high demand area for live Christmas trees. So our trend has been to see an increase in sales. Other parts of the country that I'm familiar with pretty much are in a sustaining mode."
West Valley Christmas Trees says they got a shipment of trees in on Monday and will see another shipment later today.
