Glove Hollow Christmas Tree Farm

Why we no longer allow tagging of trees:

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1. LOST TREES— and lost customers who go elsewhere because their tree is missing.

2. BEST  TREES TAKEN—Lost customers who come to the farm and leave because the best trees are already taken. Especially at the end of the season there is a big difference between tagged trees selected early in the season and the ones no one has cut yet.

3. LOST  TIME—The time it takes to explain to a customer how to tag during a busy retail day knowing they may be back in a day or two to cut it.

4. ABANDONED TREES / LOST REVENUE—Looking up information on December 23 for the phone numbers of the families who tagged a tree but have not returned to cut it. Turns out they never left a check as is the policy for tagging. This big showcase tree is cut on Dec 24th for a bargan price.

5. ABANDONED TREES / NO REFUNDS—One tree still standing was paid for so it was left in the field for the family to cut Christmas eve. Come spring it is cut down to replant the area. That summer the couple asks for a refund on the tree they never came back for.

6. MISCOMMUNICATION—You finally get smart and end tagging so you can get the word out to your tagging customers that you are ending tagging, next thing you hear is that you are getting out of the Christmas Tree business. Word spreads that you are not opening up this season.

7. CONFUSION—We grade our trees by height and quality for wholesale with different color ribbons. Families who tag will often use our grading ribbons to mark the few trees they are trying to decide between. When we start to cut for wholesale we start noticing trees with 2 sometimes 3 color ribbons on it and some trees with none. The whole harvest stops, 3 to 4 men sit around as I franticly try to put the ribbons on the right trees.

8. LOSS  OF CONTROL—Sensing that people were tagging without paying and cutting without paying you try to keep the tagging to one area. Big mistake. Customers still tag where they want to. When you remove their tagging and streamers and family dog picture and Patriots banner and santa hat mail it back to them at my cost, We are left wondering if they will come back. If you don’t remove this tagging quick enough, others start tagging in the same wrong area.

9. TEARS—Seeing a small child crying as they look down at the decorations next to the stump of the tree that was to be the center of their Christmas.

10. MISTAKES—Night time or dusk customers have a hard time noticing tagged trees and feel terrible when you point out that they have cut someone else’s tree. They may or may not go back down and cut another. I have to take time away from my day to call and explain to a tagging customer how their tree was cut by mistake.

11. RUNAWAY TINSEL—Picking up tinsel for 1 hour off the ground (off a tagged tree) before it goes into a neighboring field.

12. SIMPLICITY—Each season we tried to find a way to tell a few thousand people not to cut 55-65 trees that are specially tagged. More and more time was spent directing folks around the tagged trees, which takes away from educational opportunities or just spending the time catching up on the past year.

13. HURT FEELINGS—It is just bad business to limit what people can pick. It hurts feelings of children and adults.

14. FIRST COME / BEST CHOICE—People will stop going to your farm the longer you continue to allow tagging and seek out farms that don't allow tagging. We are now picking up families because we started to promote no tagging at our farm.