Higher gas prices are leading to more expensive Christmas trees across the nation this holiday season but we ve discovered that tree lots in Missoula seem to be bucking the trend. There s less than one month until Christmas and employees at the Christmas tree lot at Ace Hardware in Missoula say that the prices haven t changed too much. Ace s Jillian Weiler says all that you have to do is show up, find the one you like and the clear out some space in your living room.
Missoula resident Morgan Suter says he likes to shop for the perfect Christmas tree as early as possible. “I try to go right after Thanksgiving mostly because my daughter likes to look at the tree for a long period of time.” Suter says they also get a lot of presents from relatives who send them early.
“So we start to put them under the tree and I just need a place to put them ad the anticipation sort of builds a little bit more because of that.” He says the Grand Firs are his favorite but Weiler says you can choose from Scotch Pine and three different kinds of Fir trees. “The weekend before, we usually get people non-stop throughout the day I d say maybe even five or six at a time.” Weiler adds that they have a good crew to keep it going.
“We got some people helping customers, some getting them of the spikes, others sawing off the ends of the trees for the water attention and other people loading them on the trees so it s just non-stop.” She says they have 560 Christmas trees this year and they will probably sell out one week before Christmas Eve.