Originally published Saturday, December 25, 1999

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

 Don Douglass is a fir piece from retiring as a tree farmer.

But at 74, with a couple of decades of Christmas tree farming where Christmas Creek runs into the South Fork of the Snoqualmie, Don is considered sorta old growth around North Bend.

"I like tree farming, and I don't have any plans on retiring any time soon!" he said with a broad grin.

There are big, new residential developments surrounding the 35 acres that Don and wife Lynn McDonald-Douglass carved out of a stump ranch south and east of town. Now that their children are grown and off on their own, Don and Lynn and their outdoor and indoor dogs -- Britt and Fifi, respectively -- have what Lynn said is "too much space" in their 4,000-square-foot home on the edge of their Christmas tree farm.

They recently lost the 20-odd acres they'd farmed as the wholesale Candy Cane Tree Farm on Park Street in Snoqualmie, across from the Mount Si Golf Course, in a controversial condemnation and land-swap development deal.

"But some of our (seven) kids are interested in continuing the tree-farming," Lynn said. And if the last several weeks have been anything like previous years, there will be thousands of new trees to plant here to replace the Nobles, Grands, Fraser and Douglas firs hauled out by families who insist on driving over the river and into the woods to cut their Christmas trees.

Up until last Sunday, this place was jumping. Coming out to the Christmas Creek Tree Farm is more than a cut-your-own-tree shtick. Not only is there a fully stocked and staffed retail gift shop with a food service, but the farm also provides free hot coffee, cider and hot chocolate, hay rides, Santa Claus and a craft area where children can make their own souvenir "tree cookie" ornaments to hang on their tree.

"I'll tell you how it works with families that cut their own trees," Don said. "I think the children pretty much decide which tree farm to go to. The mother decides which tree will go best in their home. And Dad, well Dad does the driving and he's happy as long as everyone else is happy."

That's perhaps an oversimplified and optimistic view of the "I'm-freezing-my-buns-off-and-wanna-go-home-now" trip you might remember. But Don and Lynn and their seasonal staff of almost three dozen workers stay pretty busy making sure folks leave with what they came here for.

And folks who have come here before often know exactly what they want when they return. "There are hard-core Christmas tree connoisseurs lined up at the front gate at 9 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving, when we first open," Lynn said.

"Sometimes we have to shut down early, if too many trees are cut. You can't cut more than your set quota, or you don't have anything to sell the next year," she explained. So, what happens when the last tree is cut for the year?

"We collapse!" they said in unison.

"Actually, we begin cleanup, and servicing the equipment, and clearing out the store and repainting signs and taking soil tests for next spring's fertilizers," Don said. "And by March we have to begin planting another 6,000 to 8,000 new trees. And they all have to be ordered at least a year in advance, so it's a bit of a crap shoot."

Trees aren't just ordered out of a catalog. Don and Lynn must specify where the tree growers get their seeds.

"The best Douglas firs, for example, are grown from seed taken from around Powell River, British Columbia," Don explained. "The best Noble fir is grown from seed taken from trees on the southwest side of Mount St. Helens, and from west of Salem, Oregon."

And once they get the 2-year-old planting stock, they must add six years till a Douglas fir can be harvested; seven years for Grand fir and eight years for Noble fir. Spring planting eases into spraying for fungus and insects and weeds . . . and shearing.

It's pretty much non-stop work through the summer and fall and then it's Christmas tree time all over again.

They didn't start out like Ma & Pa Kettle on the farm. Lynn was a registered nurse transplanted from Minnesota with an airline pilot husband. Don, a Seattle native and Navy aviation World War II veteran, was active in sales and marketing. "One of my specialties was lighting fixtures for the medical profession," he said.

They were both divorced and she was working for a doctor in Burien when Don made more than the necessary number of sales calls. "I knew he liked me," she said. "And then one day he brought me a whole fresh salmon. No one had ever brought me a whole salmon before!

"We ended up like the Brady Bunch, married with his four kids and my three kids. And now we have seven grandchildren, too."

"And they all want a free tree!" Don chimed in. "But they cut and bale 'em and load the trees themselves."

Lynn added: "The kids worked here when they were in high school and we still were living on Lake Sammamish."

The whole family has paid their Christmas tree dues. Both Don and Lynn have taken turns as president of the Puget Sound Christmas Tree Growers Association, and Don remains active in the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association.

Don's brother, who was a forest ranger in the Rogue River and Portland areas, was a pioneer in Christmas tree farming and was instrumental in talking Don into the field -- literally.

"We bought this property in 1976 and 1977," Don said. "But by about 1985, I had to chose between staying full time in marketing and sales or going into Christmas trees."

There's not a whole lot of guessing about whether he made the right choice of careers or home.

"I like it here. It's just a hop, skip and a jump to Eastern Washington and the sunshine. And we're right on the edge of the mountains where I like to climb. And I've loved to hunt and fish and be outdoors since I was a boy," he said.