The Bay Area Experiences Skyrocketing Christmas Tree Sales for 2020
Despite this year’s global coronavirus outbreak, Christmas tree merchants still have their businesses thriving as the most awaited holiday in December draws nearer. For Bay Area residents, many of them have decided to purchase Christmas trees instead to make up for the inability of holding family gatherings that usually happen yearly during the holidays. Moreover, tree sales in the present are much higher than last year, and sellers have to resort to deals marketed on separate dates to avoid long lines of customers wanting to buy such a commemorative decoration.
Recently, the Bay Area’s Christmas Tree Jamboree got bombarded with online orders alone. Due to the staggering demand for buying trees, the shop has decided to halt its Internet selling services. The shop explained that its deliverymen could no longer accommodate the overwhelming amount of orders every day.
Many locals in the Bay Area shifted their interests from wishing to hold family celebrations to purchasing cheap Christmas trees instead. This year, the pandemic makes it impossible for everyone to celebrate the holidays like how they get honored every year. For instance, Skyline College’s English professor Felicia Mazzi desires to see 2020 go with a bit of joy. On Saturday afternoon, she went shopping for a Christmas tree to take home and display in her living room.
Mazzi told the news media that she wanted to purchase a Christmas tree to hold on to the holiday’s several traditions that they could still do amid the ongoing epidemic. According to her, this year has brought so many struggles in Mazzi’s life. Beginning with the virus crisis up to the online schooling challenges, Mazzi desires to make this year’s Christmas a bit more cozy and cheerful for her 10-year-old son.
Shortly after she visited the Christmas Tree Jamboree located in the Bernal Heights neighborhood, Mazzi recalled that the queue of customers slowly lengthens. Additionally, she concluded that the shop has run out of wreaths to sell as she exited the store with a bought Christmas tree.
The Christmas Tree Jamboree is not the only premise struggling with jam-packed tree orders. According to another Bay Area resident named Michele Nelson, she drove by twice at Oakland’s Delancey Street Trees in hopes of buying a Christmas tree for herself. However, the queue estimated as two blocks long seems to have many people going for the same idea. In the end, Nelson decided not to wait and look for other stores that sell trees but with fewer customers.
Bay Area Christmas Tree Merchants Resume Operations Amid Newly-Imposed Stay-at-Home Orders
Despite the stay-at-home order announcement imposed by the state since Sunday, tree merchants still get to run their businesses to cater to consumers for the incoming Christmas holiday. However, the said premises should observe proper social distancing protocols. Moreover, staffers and customers should wear face masks at all times inside the establishments and use contactless payments to purchase trees. The premises should also offer hand sanitizers to their shoppers whenever they enter and exit the stores. Even without an official consensus, the Bay Area has witnessed a rise in this year’s Christmas tree sales.
To confirm such observations, National Christmas Tree Association spokesperson Doug Hundley acknowledged that this year’s demand for Christmas trees is higher compared to previous years. According to Hundley, people compensates for the lack of holiday social gathering by setting up their homes to experience a warm and cozy Christmas season that everyone usually experiences without COVID-19.
Hundley termed the phenomenon as “cabin fever” or “COVID blues,” where people resort to Christmas shopping as a coping mechanism for not being able to celebrate the occasion with friends and family members coming from different places. ABC Tree Farms operations director Holly Prinz also agreed to the previously mentioned statement. According to Prinz, she explained that many are aware that 2020 is a rough year and forced people to stay inside their homes for the majority of the time. Due to that, Prinz concluded that people wish to look forward to something enjoyable and worthwhile, such as celebrating holidays like Christmas.
