Bedford County, VA – “We’ve been doing it so long that people we met as kids are now bringing their kids,” owner of Dancing Hill Tree Farm Richard Miles said.
Dancing Hill Christmas Tree Farm in Bedford County started out as a small family operation run by Miles.
“About 1980 we planted our first trees to help pay the kids way through college,” Miles said.
42 years later and they are still selling trees, but now to hundreds of families a year.
For many families, it’s just the beginning of a new Christmas tradition.
Christopher Ruiz brought his family in hopes of starting one of these traditions.
“My daughter, she’s two and my wife, we’ve got a baby on the way, so we wanted a Christmas tree for our first Christmas in our new house here in Virginia,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz has never gotten to pick his own tree before but wants his children to get the chance.
“I know that when I came home from school in Miami, my dad always said that I would sit in front of it and be like, ‘Wow, look at what an awesome Christmas tree,’ so we want our kids to have that same experience.”
Dancing Hill does not have as big of a crop as they usually do. This year they’ve faced diseased crops and a lack of trees to supplement what they had, but that isn’t stopping this from being their busiest time of the season.
“It used to be the first weekend of December, but people seem to be getting their trees earlier and earlier,” Miles said. “We weren’t open last weekend, the weekend before Thanksgiving, but we had a lot of calls from people wanting trees that early.”
And after looking and looking, the Ruiz’s found their perfect tree.
“It’s got a good shape, and I think it’ll actually hold ornaments up,” Ruiz said. “Some of the others are really pretty but it doesn’t seem like they’d hold ornaments up.”