A Rhode Island Christmas tradition stops growing as Henry's Tree farm closes

A holiday tradition shared by generations of Rhode Islanders ended this season with the closing of Henry's Christmas Tree Farm in Scituate.

Spread across 135 acres, the farm had more than 100,000 trees during its heyday and sold more Christmas trees over the last 60 years than owner David Henry can count.

Henry's Christmas Tree Farm was among the first in Rhode Island that let customers wander the fields and tag their own trees. Many customers would return year after year, and then their children would bring their children.

"It was a friendship. I loved seeing them," Henry said Tuesday, a couple of days after he and his wife, Linda, finished their final season selling trees. "It was a fun business. I would have done it for nothing, I loved doing it so much."

It was fun, but it was also a lot of hard work.

"It's as simple as the fact that I'm old, frankly," said Henry, who is 80. "It's not easy to do some of the things I used to do."

"The farm is doing well," he said. "There's no problem."

The Henrys thanked their customers in a Facebook post.

"We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year. Thank you for joining us in our final season as we have made the difficult decision to close," they said.

"We’ve enjoyed serving the thousands of customers that have been our guests for the last 60 years. It has been a pleasure being part of your Christmas holiday traditions," they said. "We will miss the hustle and bustle of future Christmas seasons but look forward to enjoying our retirement."

Henry started growing Christmas trees at the urging of another legendary Rhode Island Christmas tree farmer, Big John Leyden, his former high school teacher. The Henry family initially operated a poultry farm and Leyden, who died in 2018, suggested there was plenty of extra land for growing Christmas trees.

"He got me into planting trees," Henry said.

Working at the family farm for several years, Henry also embarked on a career selling life insurance. He purchased the farm from his father 45 years ago and has juggled the two careers ever since. He will continue to sell insurance, which is easier on the body than farming.

While customers might start thinking of trips to the Christmas tree farm when the air gets cold, much of the farmer's work, like shaping the trees, is done in the heat of the summer. In some years, the Henrys would plant 14,000 to 15,000 trees.

But there hasn't been much planting in the last decade. It takes about 10 years for a Christmas tree to grow to the size where somebody wants to bring it home and decorate it. The Henrys had to plan ahead and begin winding down their business years ago.

Now just a few trees are scattered across the acres of land once filled by more than 100,000 of them.

"In many ways," Henry said, "I hate to give it up."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Henry's Christmas Tree farm in Scituate closes after 60 years