For Mullins Doles, Christmas season begins in January. That’s because Doles has an avocation rare for Mississippi: he raises Christmas trees. Just after the holiday season has ended for the rest of the world, Doles tucks 600 seedlings into the soil of his 40-acre farm. And then begins the long wait: five years later, these seedlings will mature into ornament-worthy yuletide totems for eager Mississippians to carry home.
Doles started Merry Christmas Tree Farm with his late wife, Norma, as a retirement business. Now, after three decades in business, Doles is still up before dawn nearly every day, tending to his little evergreen herd.
“I don’t consider him retired,” says Sharon Hawkins, Doles’ daughter. “He’s still working.” Over the years, Doles has become something of an intergenerational celebrity: some of his original customers have become grandparents and even great-grandparents, who bring their new sets of descendants along to the farm. “I’m trying to talk him into shaking hands and kissing babies,” Hawkins adds.
The farm, too, has become an intergenerational affair. Hawkins, along with her daughter, Amanda Sanders, runs the gift shop that Norma opened back in 1990. The building—a little red-roofed cabin that would fit in perfectly at Santa Claus’ workshop—is known to the family as the “Sugar Shack,” and was hand-built by Doles for his wife. Inside, the shop offers a joyous muddle of ornaments and snow globes and handmade wreaths—“the kinds of things you just can’t find in other stores,” Hawkins says. That’s a legacy that was set by Norma, Hawkins’s mother, who passed away last year. “We just carry on her tradition,” Hawkins says, “to keep her memory, to keep her honor.”
Both Norma and Mullins spent their careers in the grocery business and knew early on that they wanted an active retirement plan. Initially, they invested in cattle—but the cows proved troublesome, always wandering out of the pasture. Which is what inspired the shift to Christmas-tree farming: “They figured the only way a Christmas tree would leave the farm would be if it were tied on top of a car,” Hawkins says. “Intentionally leaving, that is.” It sounded far easier than a retirement of chasing down runaway beef.
The wintertime tradition of decorating evergreens is so familiar that it inspires little notice—though it was far from inevitable. Likely adapted from pre-Christian rituals, tree decoration took hold in Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1600s. The tradition did not jump the Atlantic until the 19th century. Now, of course, it is universal.
Mississippi is known for its pine trees: forestry is the state’s second-most valuable form of agriculture, behind poultry and eggs, and loblolly and longleaf pine trees are among its most common trees. Though these pines, tall and skinny, are hardly the makings of a good decorating tree. So Doles, like many Mississippi tree farmers, grows Leyland cypress, a hardy conifer known for its quick growth and ability to tolerate heat. It’s most commonly grown as a hedge—but it has the perfect shape for Christmas trees. (Doles also sells pre-cut Frasier firs, which are imported from Michigan, a classic Christmas tree species.)
There are currently two dozen choose-and-cut Christmas tree farms in Mississippi that are registered with the Southern Christmas Tree Association, stretching from the coast north to Nesbit. Almost all are small, family-owned businesses like Merry Christmas Tree Farm. Last year, these farms produced around 30,000 trees, a mere fraction of the 330,000 Christmas trees grown in Mississippi back in 1985. A national oversupply of trees forced many out of business. Now, though, the state’s tree farms struggle to keep up with local demand.
Because the Leyland cypress is a hybrid of two wild cypress species, the seedlings Doles plants started their lives as cuttings—6- to 8-inch clippings from promising trees that have been treated and begun to take root. Doles purchases his seedlings, and once he’s got them in the soil, the real work begins: the ground between the trees must be continuously weeded, and the grass mowed; the trees are treated with fungicide and sprayed three times a year for insects. By July, Doles is carefully trimming the trees into shape—and then at month’s end, he stops trimming entirely, so that come winter his flock of trees will be flourishing, ready to dangle with ornaments and lights.
During the summer days, Doles’ habit of rising early pays off. Despite running a Christmas tree farm, complete with a Santa-worthy cabin, it’s not as if he lives at the North Pole: there are work days when the heat index cracks above 100 degrees. Still, there is something pleasant about tending to the trees. They stretch in long, orderly rows, a paradise of rich-smelling needles tucked amid the kudzu-wrapped hills of suburban DeSoto County.
Then, the weekend before Thanksgiving, the holiday spirit arrives in full. “We’re stocked,” Hawkins says, “ready to roll.” More family members—Doles’ children and grandchildren, and sometimes-even great-grandchildren—come on board, along with a few other long-time employees. They’re all needed because the place turns bustling: the hayrides continue, but now families roll out into the fields to pick out their favorite tree. There’s free coffee or piping hot cups of apple cider. Though sometimes the climate gets the best of the festivities: Hawkins says there have been November days when it’s hit 89 degrees. “Everybody’s sweating,” she says. “You’re like, ‘No, I don’t think I want any hot coffee today, thank you very much.’ But here it can be 80 one day and 30 the next.”
Most of the time, of course, the weather is far more suitable. “It’s a happy time,” Hawkins says. “The kids are giggling, and they’re getting their tree. It’s great to be involved in all that merry.”
Customers can cut their own tree, if they want the full experience—or turn to the staff for safety’s sake. A mechanical shaker ensures there are no hidden insects, coming along for a joyride, and then the tree is netted and loaded atop the car. From there it leaves the farm—intentionally now, unlike the cows—and goes out into the world. Then, a few weeks later, the cycle will start again: a never-ending process of Christmas.
