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The Makin family—grandmother Tere, dad Mark, mom Michelle, daughter Martina and son Mason—enjoy cutting a tree at Penland Christmas Tree Farm in York County, S.C.
Photo by Nathan Bingle
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Some 70 acres of land are planted with evergreen trees at Penland Christmas Tree Farm in York County, S.C.
Photo by Nathan Bingle
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Mark Makin watches his son, Mason, haul a fresh-cut Christmas tree at the Penland farm.
Photo by Nathan Bingle
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Allison Moses prepares a fresh-cut tree to be taken home from Penland Christmas Tree Farm, which she runs with her husband, Martin, and parents, Judy and Steve Penland.
Photo by Nathan Bingle
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Judy and Steve Penland planted the first Christmas tree on their York County, S.C., acreage in 1966. Nearly 60 years later, their daughter Allison Moses and her husband, Martin, have taken the helm of Penland Christmas Tree Farm, carrying on the family legacy.
Photo by Nathan Bingle
As the sun rises the day after Thanksgiving, a long line of vehicles waits at the front gate of the Penland Christmas Tree Farm in York County. Carloads of families wait to roam the fields of cedars, cypress and pine in search of the perfect Christmas tree. The day is all about making memories.
Memories are practically grown into the bark of Christmas trees on farms across South Carolina. Three family farms with electric cooperative connections—Penland in the Upstate, Aisles of Christmas Tree Farm in the Midlands and Booth’s Christmas Tree Farm in the Pee Dee—sprouted from different traditions, yet they all work year-round to make sure families enjoy their own traditions and memories for generations to come.
At the Penland farm, families of four and five gather at the front desk. Dads or moms carry the saws, while children pull the carts. The smell of woodsmoke from a nearby fire pit lingers over the area.
A young boy pulling a wagon pauses at a nativity scene and looks at baby Jesus before continuing on, and his mother tries to keep up.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“To the trees,” he says enthusiastically, and the family is soon hidden among a never-ending row of evergreens.
Steve Penland, who planted his first tree on the acreage in 1966, watches with a smile.
“The public wants to come to a farm to cut their own tree, not to buy one on a stake. They want that farm experience, the family tradition,” says Penland, whose daughter and son-in-law, Allison and Martin Moses, now run the York County farm that he and his wife, Judy, tended all those years.
Christmas tree farming is in Allison’s blood.
“I see something that I plant that is 12 inches tall, and we’re the ones taking care of this tree for the next six, seven years,” says Allison, who became president of the South Carolina Christmas Tree Association earlier this year. “And seeing these families coming out? It’s very humbling to know that we grew this special tree for them to have in their house to celebrate the Christmas season.”
Heavenly direction
Forty-five farms make up the South Carolina Christmas Tree Association, and, according to its vice president, Jerry Hollis, almost all are small, family-run operations.
Hollis, his wife, Cindy, and 28 other family members planted their first stand of 1,100 trees in November 2019 at their Aisles of Christmas Tree Farm near Winnsboro in Fairfield County.
Hollis says he was lying in bed one night, wondering what to do with the pine-covered land they owned. He said to his wife, “God put it on my heart to grow Christmas trees.” Cindy replied, “Does God know how old we are?”
Hollis, now 65, had spent 21 years working with Coca-Cola and nearly 25 years at Michelin North America’s tire plant in Lexington before retiring and devoting his full attention to Christmas trees.
They clear-cut 24 acres and began removing stumps from the land. They offered their first “choose and cut” trees in 2023—some 8- and 9-foot-trees from that 2019 planting. In the fall of 2023, they planted their second field—2,800 trees—in the shape of a cross.
“People ask, ‘How do you do it?’” Hollis says. “Well, we put our hearts into it. You put your whole life into it and a lot of faith and let God do the rest.”
Hollis, a member of Fairfield Electric Cooperative, says this year, they’ll be able to offer their first full crop of cut-your-own trees.
“It’s a 365-day commitment to running a Christmas tree farm,” Hollis says. “And it’s only four or five weeks a year that we get to do our sales. The farmers work their hearts out just for those moments.”
A Christmas tree tradition for a female grower
Near Conway, Lauren Booth’s grandfather, Larue Booth, planted his first tree in 1962. He operated Booth’s Christmas Tree Farm until his death in 1986. Lauren’s father, Haley Booth, took over the farm, and Lauren joined him in 1999 when she graduated from high school. The two, both members of Horry Electric Cooperative, now run the farm together.
Nearly 40 acres are planted in trees. The Booths sell between 500 to 600 farm-grown trees each year, but the majority of their sales are Fraser firs that come from farms in North Carolina.
“A lot of my customers are from up north, and they think that what I grow is not a Christmas tree. They prefer the Fraser fir,” she says.
Booth is one of four female Christmas tree farm owners in the South Carolina Christmas Tree Association and was the first woman to serve as the organization’s president almost a decade ago. A real estate appraiser and agent who also works weekends at Myrtle Beach Shark Tooth Adventures, she estimates half her time is devoted to Christmas tree farming.
“You do something every day, if it’s nothing more than cutting grass,” she says. “You’ve got to touch and fertilize every tree twice a year. There’s something to be done all year long.”
Booth continues to live on the farm near her parents. She does all the flocking (applying a liquid to the tree that adds the appearance of snow), while her father produces all the garlands. A longtime employee, Angie Brunson, makes the wreaths.
“All of the money the farm makes goes back into the farm,” Booth says. “We don’t profit. The bills get paid, but basically, we’re hobby farming.”
Still, Booth hopes her 6-year-old son will continue the business when he’s older.
“I like us being together. We’re together for the holidays, and a lot of people don’t get to do that,” she says. “The reason we’re continuing to farm is to keep that family tradition.”
Following in farmer footsteps
Back in York County, Steve and Judy Penland faced a lot of trial and error in the early years of their farm. A fire once burned about 100 trees. Then there was the year they awoke on the day after Thanksgiving to a cold rain falling. It was a little more than 30 days before the first payment was due on the farm and their new home.
“I’d bought everything on credit,” Steve recalls. “We needed to have a good day. And this was our peak day, the day you make all your money. And it was just pouring down rain. Judy and I were there lying in bed, and I said, ‘Well, we’ll just go out and do what we can.’”
The day turned out to be one of their biggest sales days ever.
“Luck saved us to make that payment and get us over the hump. The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Steve says. “As all farmers know, you deal with what you get, and you move forward.”
Judy admits it wasn’t easy when Steve announced in 2013 that he was planting his last field of Christmas trees. Of their four children, it was Allison, who grew up working on the farm, who wanted to take over.
“It’s hard to let go,” Judy says, “but it’s exciting watching your child go into this, and they’re doing an outstanding job. We think they grow a better tree than we did.”
Allison and Martin Moses have three children. Their oldest son, Michael, is a lineman with York Electric Cooperative. Their daughter, Kayleigh, a 20-year-old student at Winthrop University, and her fiancé, Tyler Lark, who’s also a York Electric lineman, both help at the farm, along with the family’s youngest, 19-year-old Matthew.
Allison’s father tells her that not every tree is going to make it. Deer will rub on the bark and kill the tree, or there could be a dry spring, or water could pool in a low spot, drowning the fickle Leyland cypress trees. But, in the next breath, Steve remembers the days he’d climb on his tractor and mow the fields “just for relaxation and to clear my mind.”
“Farming is not for the weak of heart,” Steve says. “But, at the end of the day, you take a break, and you’re able to lay down on the earth and look up at the sky and just enjoy yourself.”
Allison flashes a half-smile at her father and looks out over fields of evergreen spaced out over 70 acres. The day is near its end, with a last hint of yellow and orange on the western edge.
“It’s peaceful out here,” she says. “And I know our hands have been on every one of these trees. That’s what I love to do. I grew up doing it, but I love it even more now.”
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Choosing and caring for a Christmas tree
This advice comes from Steve and Judy Penland, who operated Penland Christmas Tree Farm in York County for close to 50 years.
- Look for a straight trunk.
- Make sure the tree’s not too big for your house. Most people prefer an 8- to 9-foot-tall tree.
- Keep the tree in water and make sure it doesn’t go dry. Look for a tree stand that will hold up to 2 gallons. A tree with a trunk diameter of 4 inches will consume a gallon of water per day.
A properly cared-for tree will stay fresh for five weeks or more.
“Real trees make real memories,” Judy says.
Find a directory of South Carolina Christmas tree farms online at scchristmastrees.org.