Did you know that Michigan has more Christmas tree farms than 47 of the states in this nation?
Support the local economy, the environment, and your own fun old-fashioned Griswold family Christmas, by getting a real tree from a nearby farm! Braun's worked great for us.
Parking here is a bit haphazard, and possibly life-endangering. Picture a small dirt road, with cars of all types parallel parked, half on the road and half in the ditch, all the way up and down both sides of the road. There's only room for one car to squeeze through at a time. Now throw in small children, dogs, tense mothers, folks hauling large fir trees on their shoulders, and rolls of twine being tossed back and forth over the roofs of cars. Move with caution, please!
When we got out of the car, we were greeted immediately by a tentative teenager in a neon orange vest. We described what we were looking for: We live in a smallish apartment, we don't have a TON of ornaments, and neither of us is particularly tall, so we were looking for something more like a Christmas bush....something like......"THAT ONE!" It was waiting for us, right smack in the front of the pre-cut section.
Of course, we had to look around a little bit to be sure that it was the MOST perfect tree. Most of the pre-cuts available were 7-10 ft. tall, and we weren't quite up for tromping out in the fields to cut down our own (though maybe someday we'll subject our hypothetical children to this holiday tradition--the families we saw seemed to be having a great time, and leashed dogs are welcome to join in the adventure!) so we nabbed our perfect pre-cut.
(As an aside, I'm a bit amazed that in today's litigious society, it's even feasible for a business to hand out saws to unknown folks and send them out into the woods with children and dogs. Let's do our part to keep this safe, legal, and reasonable: head out to Braun's, or any tree farm, to ensure that the sane folks will always vastly outnumber the Christmas fruitcakes!)
Even though we didn't cut our own, I think we were better off getting our pre-cut tree from a farm, because it was cut, at most, a couple of days ago, not a couple of weeks ago for shipment to a lot.
Prices seemed comparable to what I've seen and paid elsewhere (we paid $48 for a 6 ft pre-cut tree). Prices per foot are listed on the website (deal alert: ALL white pines are $25 per tree).
Watching them prepare your tree is part of the fun: first, they stick it on a machine that shakes it vigorously, to get all loose needles off. Then they pop it through a twine baler, and hand you a neatly bundled, easy-to-carry tree that looks like a closed umbrella.
The kids working there are friendly and helpful--one reminded us to put it on the car with the trunk facing forward, so the wind wouldn't catch the branches the wrong way.
I don't have much to compare this place to, but it worked great for us. Just look out for the small handful of enraged christmas crazies ("Do you have some clippers I can use?" "Let me check" "THE ANSWER IS YES OR NO!"), be extra nice to the hardworking kids, to make up for the crazies, and have yourself a merry little Christmas now. read more
