‘Experience’ the key when it comes to U-Cut trees

RM OF CORNWALLIS – The first thing that stands out when you approach Sandra Smith’s farm just south of Brandon, are the many rows of cone-shaped Christmas trees that line the yard.

A friendly dog named Maple approaches customers with a heavy gait, and a man in a Santa hat shoves a leaf blower into a pine tree.

When customers come to this farm, breathe in the air, pet the horses, and drink the hot chocolate, they are technically here to buy a tree. But there’s other places they can buy a tree.

It’s a little bit further out of the way than the department store. And there’s conveniences missing – you might find a bird’s nest in your product, or a field mouse, and there’s no parking lot, just a row of grass to stop your car, wherever you might decide to do that.

In terms of a business, this Christmas tree farm has it all backwards. The staff hand you the saw, and make you go and cut the tree, and drag it back. They make you feed the horses — with candy canes. And they make you drive out of the city to do it. So why do people come here, and even make a pact to do it again?

The answer is a mystical word called “the experience.”

If it’s cold, you just dress for it, says Andrew Smart, a Brandon father armoured in a red snow jacket, snowpants, mitts, a toque and boots. The temperature is about -10 C, but if it were colder, he’d drive out here just the same. The man carries his handheld saw as he leads his seven-year-old daughter and four-year-old son into the tree field — the kids stuffed into a sled, being dragged behind a rope in the hands of their mother.

“These two have been excited for two weeks to get out here,” the Brandon man says of his children. The kids are tucked into as many layers of winter gear as he.

Smith stops before a beautiful, living green Christmas tree and ruffles through the branches with his mitts. Might be the one.

“You hear the horror stories about the needles,” he says. “But, here it’s not that bad at all because they take out the needles.”

“Another one too is you find mice sometimes.”

Satisfied with the look of the tree, the father calls for his daughter, Blake, to come over. He lifts her in his arms and holds her up above his head, so she can measure the tree. She sticks out her arm — okay, that’s good, thank you honey!

“If it was over her head, it was too tall, and if it was under her arm, it was too short,” Smart says of the measurement process.

It’s not clear the father strained much to look at where the tree really stood in this measurement. The exercise probably wasn’t that important to their living room; but it probably was important to the girl.

Blake comes down with a smile, and then runs off to play hide and seek with her mom and brother.

The father kneels down on his hands and knees in the field. He reaches the saw at the base of the chosen Christmas tree, and tears through it in a posture that must be bad for his back. Andrew tips the tree over into the field, then throws it into the sled. After some family photos, the trek begins back to the farm.

At the farm property, the U-cut farm owner is equipped with a santa hat and a leaf blower. The owner, Jared Smith, is ready to blow out excess needles, and to remove vacant birds nests before the tree leaves the property. Customer service does pop up in places during the experience.

The Smart family, consisting of Andrew, his wife Samantha, their son, Calan, and their daughter Blake, are one of many that come to Brandon Hills U-Cut Christmas Trees for the “experience.” They are four of roughly 500 people that visit each year.

Sandra Smith, the original buff behind the U-cut farm, and married to Jared, stands behind the counter to serve hot chocolate in the warming hut. Smith hands out candy-canes to families, with instructions to feed one of the horses, who loves candy canes.

Customers may come to buy a tree, but that’s not really the whole picture of why they are here, she said. Every time Smith is asked about the purpose of the U-Cut farm, it’s always the same answer.

“I think it’s for the experience,” she says. “We always say the experience.”

Her daughter, Autumn: “We are giving people an experience.”

Samantha Smart: “Before, my family only ever had artificial trees. So I didn’t know about the experience.”

It turns out people are guarded when asked to clarify, for print, the sentiment behind a tender family outing. But, if you push a bit, someone may confess something, if you really push, about the mystical word.

Sandra relents:

“It just makes me feel like we’re making Christmas special,” she says. “We’re giving families traditions, and continuing the traditions. I think it’s the old-fashioned Christmas … it’s the tree you find with your family that you get to put up in your house.”

Sean Wojnarski brought his 10-year-old daughter Haddie to the farm that day. He mentioned the family had gone through a divorce, and sees the tree cutting as a way to build some strength.

“Kind-of brings families together, I think,” he says. “It’s something we can bond over.”

It may be more convenient to go to the department store and grab one ready-packed, like he used to, but it’s not the same. Wojnarski wants to make things a bit more inconvenient; it’s a better memory that way, and more personalized.

“It’s just a fun day every year … and hopefully she can pass it on to her kids someday.”

Natasha Gadde, a mother shopping with her two preschool-aged daughters, picks out a tree while her husband is away on military work.

“I’m not allowed to have a fake tree,” she says with a laugh. “He grew up with real trees, and it just kind of carried traditions from his family to ours.”

“To be honest, it’s so much better,” she says. “Joy, I’m hoping. I’m hoping they’ll enjoy our tradition as they grow up.”

Gadde poses for a family photo, socializes with her sister, and supervises her daughters, and niece and nephew running around. She hopes the seed is planted.

The customers all credit the U-Cut farm with supplying them the chance to be inconvenienced. Jared says there’s enough inconvenience to go around for everybody.

While the trees were growing, Jared grabbed a machete and wandered out to the field with rows of trees. He carved the branches into shape: a nice cone.

“You only do a couple hours at a time because it’s pretty labour intensive,” he says from the frozen farmyard. “In June, it’s hot, there’s bugs, there’s ticks.”

Sandra’s parents owned a Christmas tree farm for 30 years. When the farm closed around 2008, along with her husband she took up the torch. She has been selling trees at her farm since 2019. She said there’s no pressure on her kids to take it up in the future, but there can be a hope.

The next morning, the Smart family, with the light of the day flowing through their living room window, starts loading their tree with lights and ornaments. Every decoration comes out more sentimental, and handmade than the last.

“What’s this?” asks Calan, the four-year-old. He’s holding up a present-looking box not much bigger than his hand.

His mother, Samantha, comes near. “That’s from when we bought our first house,” she says. The box is a key, she explains — it comes as part of a wave of memorabilia, like ornaments containing paperwork from the children’s birth dates. Meanwhile, Blake brings out an angel made from paper cut outs from her handprints.

“We get the kids involved with the decorations they’ve made,” says Andrew. “Then it starts into the wrapping of presents, when they start to go under the tree.”

For the Smart family, the U-Cut farm supplies a tradition that lives on for another year.

It would have been easier to buy a fake tree, or buy a pre-cut one from the department store, but that’s not really the point, they say.

The more work that goes into it, the more the time together is an “experience.”

»cmcdowell@brandonsun.com