Jill Biden Welcomes ‘Tree-mendous’ Official White House Christmas Tree
Towering 25-foot Fraser fir brings hope and renewal for the season and for storm-ravaged North Carolina.
The green, horse-drawn carriage steered by men in black top hats and suits rolled to a stop Monday afternoon in front of the North Portico of the White House. Spilling out the back was a loosely bound, tethered 25-foot-tall Fraser fir from the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina.
To a rendition of “O Christmas Tree” played by the military band, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, dressed in a red pantsuit, greeted guests and welcomed the official White House Christmas tree for the last time alongside her grandson, Beau, and military families from the North Carolina National Guard.
This year’s Christmas tree carries a poignant message from the Appalachian hills that grow most of the Fraser firs sold in America. The region was devastated in the fall by a tropical storm that spun out of Hurricane Helene.
“The Cartner family lost thousands of trees to the storm,” the first lady said. “But this one remained standing and they named it ‘Tree-mendous’ for the extraordinary hope that it represents.”
“The Cartner family lost thousands of trees to the storm,” the first lady said. “But this one remained standing and they named it ‘Tree-mendous’ for the extraordinary hope that it represents.”
Biden went on to pay tribute to the rebuilding efforts ongoing in North Carolina after the western Appalachian area of the state was severely impacted by the storm in late September. The heart-wrenching damage was the result of record flooding and mudslides causing more than 100 deaths and the destruction of critical infrastructure and residential areas.
The brief ceremony capped off what was a long and remarkable journey for the Cartners and their 25-year-old fir. This is the 59th year a grower has provided a Christmas tree for the White House. For growers to have a tree be considered, they first must advance through a series of local and then national competitions judged by the National Christmas Tree Association. The grand champion of the national contest, which draws from the association’s membership made up of hundreds of active Christmas tree farms, is from where the White House selects its tree.
Hours before the White House ceremony, Sam Cartner, family member and a manager of Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm that was established by his father in 1959 in Newland, North Carolina, spoke with East Wing Magazine. He described the elation of the moment along with the fret that comes with running a wholesale Christmas tree farm.
“When I woke up, I thought, ‘Man, I’ll be glad if we get all this done and there’s no hitches,’” he said. “I’m just hoping that everything works out.”
That’s to be expected. But this year, as Dr. Biden highlighted, the fact that the tree weathered the storm has given a whole region of Christmas tree farmers reason to believe in the renewal of the season.
In a matter of hours on that fateful September day, the Cartners lost between 6,000 and 7,000 Fraser fir trees, most under 4 feet tall—a silver lining, says Cartner, because they were not yet fully grown for market.
“That would have been a real devastating moment if we’d have lost the tree going to the White House,” he said, “because trees that size are rare.”
The native fir
The Fraser fir, Abies fraseri, is indigenous to western North Carolina and that’s important to understand as they require a special environment to grow, according to Cartner. He explained: Fraser firs grow very slow. From seed to seedling takes about eight years. At five years, the seedling reaches about 8 inches tall. And, when the seedling is placed in the field, they grow about a foot a year.
“If you have an 8-foot Fraser fir Christmas tree, it’s about 13 years old from seed,” Cartner said.
The 1-inch needles are arranged spirally around the stem and cast shiny, blue and dark green hues. Its bark is thin and smooth. But it’s the scent of the tree, said Cartner, that “everybody talks about” and nostalgically associates with Christmas.
Growing the firs take a dedicated amount of nurturing in the form of manual labor that includes regular fertilizing, shearing, insect control and ground cover control. That kind of care means the Fraser fir Christmas tree holds their needles the longest.
“Fraser firs are the premier Christmas tree,” Cartner said.
There are about 25 million live Christmas trees sold in the United States annually, according to Cartner. North Carolina provides about 25% of them, of which most are Fraser firs. That’s up to 5 million Fraser firs grown over six North Carolina counties every year, Cartner estimated. The Christmas tree farms are a bedrock of the local economy being the No. 2 income producer of those counties, beaten only by tourism.
“These were very poor counties,” said Cartner. “Christmas trees saved a lot of people. They were a much better cash crop than tobacco, corn and beans. So people started planting Fraser fir Christmas trees and they were able to pay bills, for college, and things like that.”
Budding and rebuilding
In October, as the region began to recover from the storm, the business of Christmas plowed ahead. After the Cartners were named “Grand Champion,” they welcomed White House Superintendent of Grounds Dale Haney to the farm for the highly anticipated selection of the Official White House tree, an event that was filmed. Cartner, alongside his brothers, spoke to the crowd that gathered about how he believed his parents would want the tree to represent all the good things and generosity in society—given all they had just endured. That’s when he named the fir “Tree-mendous,” a word symbolic of faith, hope, love, joy, happiness, sharing and generosity, he said.
Just three weeks after the storm, Haney walked the grounds until he found one that he said had a nice color, was straight and smelled good.
“This may be more than perfect,” Haney said. “It may be ‘Tree-mendous’.”
The event drew a lot of local publicity. Moreover, it created a sense of gratitude and resilience from locals who saw hope in a home-grown tree that was somehow destined to grace the most historic home of the land.
One local official, Jennifer Greene of the National Christmas Tree Association, declared during the event that this was testament to the Christmas tree farmers’ faith and perseverance. Some growers lost market-size trees while others lost ornamental greenery—both expected to take significant hits to their income this year.
“Avery County will rise again,” she said, adding that they were just now “coming out of the ashes” and beginning their rebuilding stage.
Cartner already sees the work ahead of him. There are all those trees that will have to be replaced and replanted. There’s more work to be done on rural farm roads. Again, he’s grateful for how far they’ve come in just a matter of weeks replacing culverts and bridges to the fields that they had to harvest this year. Plus, the county and the state were able to repair roads so farmers like the Cartners could get trucks to their loading docks and eventually out to retailers.
“Starting around January 1, I’m going to try to figure out what to do with all those trees we lost,” he said. “But right now, I’m just trying to get through the harvest.”
An honor unlike any other
It is rare, indeed, to take a Christmas tree to the White House. There are up to about 500 Christmas tree farmers in Avery County, according to Cartner, and they have participated in the National Christmas Tree Association competition maybe a dozen times.
“The competition is so hard,” he says, but not necessarily for the Fraser fir. That variety has been chosen for the White House 16 times since the establishment of the contest. “That’s a positive performance against all the other species. We’re very proud to represent the Fraser fir growers with our tree.”
Back at the White House, the first lady began wrapping up her remarks describing how in a matter of days volunteers from all over the country would converge on the residence to transform this tree.
“This tree recognizes your tremendous strength and service,” she said, adding soon, “out of the whirlwind of glitter and garlands, will come the warmth and comfort of the season.”