Things likely will be a little slower at Kaufman County’s two Christmas tree farms this weekend. That’s OK. It’s been a good year, despite the drought that closed several northeast Texas farms this year.

“The established trees did fine. We lost about 75 percent of the seedlings,” said Cindy Fanelli, owner of Lone Star Pines on Highway 80 between Elmo and Wills Point.

Lone Star Pines tree shed

The older trees remain dark green, in orderly rows against the yellow grass.

Walls Family Farm off on Highway 34 north of Terrell has an irrigation system and lost few trees.

Vicki Stecher, whose parents Marilyn and Dale Walls own the farm, said she knows that some farms will not be able to reopen because of the drought. “They lost everything,” she said.

Ms. Fanelli said business has been down slightly but they expect a busy weekend. A few even stopped in Friday afternoon to grab a tree.

“This will be a fun weekend for us,” Mrs. Stecher said. Many folks already have their tree but the stragglers will be out. And some will come to picnic, take a hayride or walk in the woods.

“We’ve got some who come just to buy pecans. Some come to buy wreaths,” she said. The pine wreaths are handmade and the pecans are grown on the farm.

At Lone Star, the trees are the business; the stand is open only from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

“We’re a lot bit different,” Mrs. Stecher said, “because we’re a real farm.” They grow and sells pecan and other trees and plants wholesale to nurseries during the year.

The Christmas trees happened by accident. Mrs. Stecher said the family used to cut a cedar tree each Christmas and just as regularly her mother got sick. “But we didn’t see the connection,” she said.

One year they were away from home, and her mother was fine. The got it. Her father, Dale, planted a 100 Virginia pines so they would always have a fresh Christmas tree.

“The neighbors liked them and asked for one, then friends. A business was born,” Mrs. Stecher said.

That was close to 40 years ago and the business has grown.

She said some customers have been coming for 25 years, bringing their children. “We’ve watched them grow up.”

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