Christmas trees are an age-old iconic symbol of the celebration of the holidays. While about 80% of Christmas trees in the U.S. are artificial, and made of plastic, about 25 million to 30 million real Christmas trees are sold every year in the U.S., according to the National Christmas Tree Growers Association.

Along with that, close to 350 million trees are growing on 15,000 tree farms around the U.S., covering about 350,000 acres of trees.

In Nebraska, there are Christmas tree farms in at least 16 counties, according to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, mostly centered in the eastern, southeast and south-central parts of the state.

Trees near you

One of the northernmost Christmas tree farms is T.H.E. Tree Farm near Bloomfield in Knox County. The southernmost farms are located at Porky Pines Tree Farm near Arapahoe in Furnas County and Pinecrest Tree Farm at Blue Springs in Gage County.

Washington, Douglas and Cass counties host a number of tree farms in the east, while the westernmost farm in Nebraska is Heins Pines at Cozad in Dawson County.

While Christmas tree farms rise to the radar of consumers in November and December, as Christmas approaches, tree farmers are busy all year long producing that perfectly shaped tree.

In the spring, they are busy planting trees, because for every tree that is cut during the holiday season, three more are typically planted in its place. In the summer, farmers monitor pest issues with their trees, and shape the trees with hand shears, shearing knives and mechanical shears to give them the pyramidal shape consumers want.

PERFECT TREE: To develop the perfect Christmas tree, growers work year-round to plant, care for and shape the tree for their customers.

The first record, according to the National Christmas Tree Growers Association, of decorated Christmas trees in history was in 1510 in Latvia. By the 1700s, in parts of Austria and Germany, evergreen tips were brought into homes and hung top-down from the ceiling, and these were often decorated with apples, gilded nuts and red paper strips.

The first accounts of candlelit Christmas trees came from 18th-century France. German settlers brought their Christmas tree traditions to the U.S. in the 1800s. Franklin Pierce was the first U.S. president to bring a Christmas tree into the White House in 1853.

The first Christmas tree farm was established around 1901 by W.V. McGalliard, who planted 25,000 Norway spruce on his farm in New Jersey. President Franklin D. Roosevelt got into the act when he started a Christmas tree plantation on his estate at Hyde Park, N.Y., in the 1930s.

If you are looking for a Christmas tree farm near you, check out the interactive map at the Nebraska Department of Agriculture website at nda.nebraska.gov.