This black Friday marks the start of the holiday shopping season. And while many are hitting the stores, some are hitting the fields, and looking for the perfect Christmas tree.
Many Christmas tree farms around the area officially opened for the season this Friday, including Stokoe Farms in Scottsville.
Julie Izzo is the Director of Operations at Stokoe Farms and said they were busy Friday morning with families eager to get their trees.
"We had a real early rush, a little earlier than I expected. We open at 9 but we had people ready to go get their tree at 8:15, so we got those wagons going and got them out to the field."
Izzo said the Christmas tree season is quick, and they expect to see most of their sales in the next 2 weekends.
"Probably 80-85% of our tree sales will be these next 2 weekends, and then it really just slows right down. Everyone who wants to get that fresh cut tree wants it in their house, with the lights up, wants the scent of a beautiful fur tree."
Whether or not most people buy a precut tree or venture into the fields to cut their own, Izzo says, depends on the weather.
"Most of our customers really want the tradition and joy of going out and cutting their own tree. I think this year with the milder weather, most of our guests are going out into the field."
Izzo said this summers drought affected their crops, but they still have plenty of trees to go around.
"We had loss in our new transplants, so its the younger trees that we saw the real issue with. We lost some of those unfortunately. But it takes 8-10 years to grow a tree. So the trees that we were going to be being cut this year, they have a real good, deep root system. They're fine, they're green, they're lush."