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Hello, Quartz readers. Christmas is coming, and Americans are turning their living rooms into the great outdoors. Ever wondered where that Christmas tree comes from? Well, read on.

The growers

It starts with the tree growers. About 2,880 farms are dedicated Christmas-tree growing farms, and another 13,000 or so sell some Christmas trees, alongside more traditional farming crops such as vegetables or grains, depending on the terrain, according to data from the Department of Agriculture. It’s a dicey business — trees take years to reach sales height, and anything from drought to disease to poor soil can wipe out a crop and set a farmer back years. And margins are small. A cut tree that retails for $75 can sell for as little as $20 at the farm.

Some shoppers have found an even cheaper way to get a Christmas tree. The Forest Service sells permits for as little as $5 to cut a tree in a national park. Only designated trees can be cut, and the cutter is responsible for schlepping the tree home. The Forest Service notes that cutting a Christmas tree improves forest health by helping to thin densely wooded areas of small-diameter trees.

Christmas trees grow even as churches don’t

As recently as the early 1990s, about 90% of U.S. adults identified as Christians, according to the Pew Research Center. Today, about two-thirds of adults are Christian, largely the result of adults leaving the churches in which they were raised to become religiously unaffiliated.

Still, even as the number of churchgoers has decreased, tree sales have held steady. Last year, 14% of U.S. households bought a live tree, according to the Christmas Tree Association.

Artificial trees

There are still plenty of people who prefer their trees to be plastic: no messy needles on the floor, no fire hazard, and nothing to dispose of come January. Plus, you can take it apart and put it in the closet for next year, and not have to pay for a new tree!

About 80% of Americans celebrate with an artificial tree, and in 2022, the U.S. imported close to 20 million artificial trees, almost all of them made in China. According to a survey from National Tree Company, an importer and wholesaler of artificial Christmas trees, 35% of consumers plan to purchase a new artificial tree this year, with 31% saying they’ll spend up to $200 on it.

Bracing for Trump tariffs

New York City street sellers say there has been a flood of Canadian trees, as growers up North rush to sell trees before President-elect Donald Trump imposes a threatened 25% duty on Canadian goods sold in the U.S. According to U.S. government data, some 2.5 million Canadian Christmas trees were shipped to the U.S. in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, worth about $68 million at wholesale prices.

“That could impact our growers for sure,” Shirley Brennan, executive director of the Canadian Christmas Trees Association, said of the tariffs.

“It could also impact the Christmas tree season in the States,” she told Canada’s CBC broadcaster. “If someone decides not to pay that tariff and not ship to the States, then that is going to impact whether or not they’re going to have trees because they rely on Canada for their trees.”

Christmas trees, by the numbers

-American consumers bought 21.6 million real Christmas trees last year at a median price of $75, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.

-Some 290,000 acres of land, split among more than 16,000 farms are growing some 350 million Christmas trees across the U.S.

-Up to three seedlings are planted for every tree that’s harvested, as it can take an average of seven years for a tree to reach the optimum height of six to seven feet.

-And while trees are grown in every state in the union, the top tree-producing states are Oregon, North Carolina, and Michigan, according to the Department of Agriculture’s five-year survey, last conducted in 2022.

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