Forget a fake. Thousands come to Alvin to find their perfect Christmas tree

ALVIN, Texas – With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, many families are spending the rest of the holiday weekend putting up Christmas decorations. The focus of the decoration is the Christmas tree.

While some opt for the same artificial tree year after year, there is still the old tradition of packing up the family and heading to the Christmas tree farm that has lived on in some families for generations.

There are several tree farms in the Houston area, including Froberg’s Farm in Alvin.

Froberg’s Farm opens for the season

The season opened this weekend. To say they were busy is an understatement.

Gage Goulding: “How many people have you seen here so far?”

Tyler Froberg: “A lot. Thousands.”

Tyler Froberg runs his family farm in Alvin. It is one of the largest farms in our area.

For him, this time of year is like the Super Bowl.

“It’s not like we waited 365 days for this. Right,” Froberg said. “We have been waiting for this moment for over 1,200 days because it took four years to grow these trees.”

The impact of Hurricane Beryl on the farm

Every single one of their 10,000 trees were knocked down by Hurricane Beryl earlier this year.

“All of our trees still have the stand that we had to stand on, every single one of them,” he explains.

In addition, concerns grew that there could be a shortage of Christmas trees after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, where a fifth of the country’s Christmas trees are produced.

Could Froberg’s Farm be experiencing a shortage?

Even though the hurricane didn’t cause a shortage of Christmas trees here at Froberg’s Farms, there could still be a shortage.

The reason: So many people came out to get their Christmas tree in the first two days that they might not have enough for the rest of the season.

On Saturday, a steady stream of families streamed through the market and into the field.

Families create traditions at the tree farm

“There’s a lot more in the back too,” said Christine Ulmer, who was there with her husband and parents.

“It was like we started a family tradition,” she said. “And now we’re getting our own tree tradition for the second year.”

When they found the tree they wanted, Dad got on all fours and sawed the tree down – just like they had been doing for years.

“The fact that we can provide them with such a beautiful tree, we are so grateful,” Froberg said.