When the subject of Christmas tree transportation is up swinging in the festivity-inspired streets, an average American can’t but recollect one heart-wrenchingly nostalgic and uproarious scene from the legendary National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation film: the ingenious solution of Daddy to get the tree without a saw which he has forgotten at home and the rib-tickling way the family was later delivering the tree to their house.
Today, the tree-buying process has become much less troublesome. You can buy a freshly cut tree in nearly every US town. People can purchase their lovely evergreen trees from large retailers and local hardware stores.
Interestingly enough, this Christmas attribute is encompassed by numerous complex and lengthy logistics processes. That said, we bet you would like to know how your lovely tree is carried to you. Here we go!
Home Alone-Like Christmas Trees Are Delicate
Christmas trees are farmed and then grown for one ultimate purpose: to be cut for the annual celebration. In the United States, every day, about 25-30 million trees are sold after being grown on over 15,000 farms.
Trees require exceptional shipping conditions that complicate their transportation. As a rule, the plants are carried in dry vans or reefer trucks that have the temperature control feature. It’s not recommended to transport trees making a number of pick-up/unloading stops; long distances should be eschewed.
It’s also worth noting that trees are sensitive to weather conditions like wind, temperature shifts as well as many other climate factors. This means that, for effective and successful Christmas tree transportation, flatbed shipping needs to be excluded. Given the harsh environmental conditions, delivering firs and pines in the fastest way possible is the ultimate goal of shipping of this type. Christmas trees are well adapted to humidity, which means that they need to be placed in a water container as soon as possible.
Another challenge of arranging the transportation is the refusal from carriers who are too careful to take responsibility for shipping delicate freight like Christmas trees. This is what makes such transportation pricey and a little cumbersome as regards the management process.
How Is the Journey of the “Worshiped” Tree Realized?
You need to keep in mind that, starting from the minute the tree is cut, its clock is ticking. At tree farms, the plants are loaded into different types of trucks or, sometimes, containers once they’re to be shipped farther than the US mainland. Every US tree farm will most probably want its trees to be shipped differently. Some farms bale the plants with netting and only then load them into the truck. It all depends on the farm’s policies and the owner’s preferences which should be strictly followed by drivers.
When it comes to choosing the vehicle for Christmas tree shipping, the distance is what largely matters. For short hauls, dry cans are used. For long-distance trips, reefers trucks are utilized in order to ensure the trees resemble the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree by their condition.