Going the way of hand sanitizer, toilet paper and gasoline, Christmas trees have become harder to find and a more expensive product during the COVID pandemic.

But the reason it’s now difficult to find an affordable family tree is more complicated than a simple rush of demand.

The price of a Christmas tree is up as much as 30%, but so are the costs for sellers to ship their trees. For some suppliers, it used to cost $800 to get trees delivered from Canada; now, it costs $2,500.

But the main cause pre-dates COVID. The Great Recession in the years after 2007 left tree growers with fewer resources. “When times were tough in ‘08 and ‘12, ‘15, nobody planted,” Phil Londrico, of Londrico’s Christmas Trees, says. “Now you don’t have trees.”

The supply shortage has only been realized in recent years because of the time it takes the trees to grow…read more.