As we all remember, the Monday after Thanksgiving turned into a snow day for most schools across Michigan’s Great Southwest, but it was anything but a day off for dozens of volunteers who showed up at Wahmhoff Farms Nursery of Gobles where the annual “Trees for Troops” loading day continued despite the weather to make certain that U.S. Military families would get their annual gift of a free live-cut Christmas Tree from Michigan’s Great Southwest.
Besty Wahmhoff Perales says that the Christmas tree farm was “swamped” on that Monday, November 26th, but it was an amazing day, as has become tradition.
Betsy says she’s already getting phone calls and notes from families as far away as Camp Lejeune with thank you messages for the generous donation of a real evergreen from the Great Lakes State.
The crew at Wahmhoff Farms Nursery, which is located on M-40 just south of Gobles, loaded up 531 Christmas trees this year and had been slated for another 100 trees, but that farmer ended up taking his to another Michigan pick-up location for the Trees for Troops campaign.
Wahmhoff Farms Nursery is a family-owned and operated Christmas Tree Farm in the region that has been growing and selling quality Christmas trees for more than 60 years. The family business actually originated in Grand Junction but transitioned to Gobles, which is where they are now located. They are known throughout the industry for producing high quality trees and wreaths, and have won several state competitions, providing them the honor of presenting Christmas trees and wreaths to the Governor of Michigan over the years, and in 2011 they won Reserve Grand Champion at the National Christmas Tree Association, giving them the honor of supplying the Christmas tree for United States Vice President Joe Biden and his family.
The first Wahmhoff trees were planted and harvested in the 1950s by Carl Wahmhoff Sr and Carl Wahmhoff Jr, the grandfather and father of the present owners, Dan and Ken Wahmhoff, who bought the farm from their father in 1996, making it a third generation family business. Dan’s and Ken’s brother Tom and sister Betsy, along with Dan’s wife Lorie, all work full time in the business. Fourth generation children have already worked on the farm as well.
Wahmhoff has been retailing Christmas trees in Southwest Michigan since 1962. There are now several generations of families continuing the family tradition of a trip to Wahmhoff Farms to select their perfect Christmas tree for the holidays.
Wahmhoff Farms Nursery employs about 20 people full-time year ‘round and about 60-to-80 seasonal workers.
Their selection of Christmas trees includes Fraser Fir, Canaan Fir, Balsam Fir, Concolor Fir, Korean Fir, Douglas Fir, Colorado Blue Spruce, White Spruce, Norway Spruce, Serbian Spruce, Black Hills Spruce, Scotch Pine, White Pine, Austrian Pine and Red Pine.
During Christmas Tree harvest, they can harvest between 5,000 and 10,000 trees in a single day. Trees are loaded onto semi-trucks, 500-1,000 trees per truckload, and shipped all across the country, as far west as Utah; north to Winnipeg, Canada; south to Florida; SW to Texas, NW to Montana, and to the East Coast.
They have several retail locations for Christmas trees and wreaths in the Kalamazoo/Portage area, and their Choose-N-Cut farm is just 15 miles west of Kalamazoo, 1 mile south of Gobles on M-40 Hwy
That 150-acre Choose-N-Cut is open 7 days a week from the day after Thanksgiving until just before Christmas, and offers free popcorn and tractor-drawn wagon rides every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
