Last year, 16 percent of the nation's 31.3 million live Christmas trees were cut by the people whose family rooms they'd grace, according to industry data. A larger percentage, roughly one in four, were bought at big-box chains.The segment's Christmas tree business has been steadily growing, overtaking sales from cut-it-yourself farms last year while continually overpowering tree-selling venues such as nurseries, retail lots and nonprofit groups, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.The Home Depot Inc., the nation's largest retailer of fresh-cut trees, expects to sell about 2 million trees between Thanksgiving and Christmas during a carefully choreographed sales extravaganza.The production, which begins Monday when the company's stores around the nation start receiving shipments of trees from two dozen farms, is so detailed that the Atlanta-based company knows just where to send tall trees (wealthier suburban communities where homes are more likely to have been designed with cathedral ceilings) and what varieties sell better in certain regions (balsam firs in the northern U.S.; noble firs in the West.)Close behind Home Depot are household names like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Lowe's Cos. Inc.Despite the growth of big business in the Christmas tree market, there are still families hanging on to over-the-river-and-through-the-woods moments.
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