Not only is Black Friday the biggest shopping day of the year, it’s also the day many people continue family traditions and buy their Christmas trees.
Star Hill Family Farm in Portland was buzzing with families Friday, with everyone choosing their favorite sized tree, enjoying apple cider donuts and feeding the farm animals.
“We always go pick out our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, so we’re doing our family outing,” Erika Glebocki, of Manchester, said. “First as a family of four!”
“Most years we do go out, every now and then we sneak in a fake tree in the middle,” Nadia Bailey, of West Hartford, said. “But we decided to really go for it this year."
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Owners Nino and Karen DiBiase get their trees from a farm in Vermont, but have planted about 2,000 of their own trees since purchasing the property in 2021. They hope to sell their own in five to six years once they’re big enough.
Thankfully with the dry weather this year, they haven’t lost too many.
They said they wanted to open the farm to get back to old-school family traditions around the holidays.
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“This is what we really strive for, to give the real Christmas experience to every family. Both Nino and I had very strong family traditions growing up, lot of good memories of Christmas with our families, so we’re just trying to give that back,” Karen DiBiase said.
“Bringing back old school Christmas traditions. That was the most important thing,” Nino said. “Today, you got the big box stores selling but there’s nothing family oriented or personable about that. The family experience and everything we do to bring the families closer and the community – it’s far from none. It’s what we wanna do and what we wanna strive for here.”
This weekend, Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus are visiting Star Hill Family Farm. The farm also has a petting zoo and horse-drawn carriage rides.
