The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by George Sakkestad

O Christmas Tree: Dan Franks cuts down a tree at Bear Creek Christmas Tree Ranch.

Finding the perfect Yuletide tree is just a (winding) car ride away

Bear Creek Christmas Tree Ranch is one of 38 that allow residents to choose and cut trees

By Deborah Taylor-Hollis

As Thanksgiving ushers in the holiday season next week, thousands of Bay Area families will pile in their cars, wind through the mountains and hunt down the perfect Christmas tree. Despite the lure of convenient supermarket tree lots, stuffed full with perfectly shaped firs, this is one time-honored tradition that, for many families, has remained intact.

Heidi Thomas, a Willow Glen resident, said heading to the mountains each year is a good way to kick off the holiday season.

"As a child, we always used to have the family outing, with my dad carrying the ax, and we'd pick the biggest tree we could find," she explained. "After I got married, we started doing it. It's really fun to take a thermos full of hot cider or hot chocolate. Getting a tree from the market doesn't seem the same. I don't want my daughter thinking trees grow in parking lots."

Cathleen Bruhn, a Los Gatos resident, said her kids enjoy roaming through the mountains.

"[The kids] love roaming up and down the hills," Bruhn said. "It's a great family outing. We get out our hiking boots and mittens, and then the kids have to decide on a tree. We videotape them, and it's lots of fun."

Bruhn's family has been chopping down its own Christmas trees for nine years. Last year the kids, aged 6, 11 and 13, overzealously chopped down a 12-foot tree, though their home has an eight-foot-high ceiling.

The owners of the Bear Creek Christmas Tree Ranch can attest to the fact that more and more families like the Bruhns are heading for the hills during the Christmas season.

"Business was so good last year, we had to close after only two weeks," co-owner Alicia Franks explained. "We just ran out of everything."

The mountaintops southwest of Los Gatos are home to nearly 40 registered Christmas tree-growers, such as Bear Creek Christmas Tree Ranch; the area boasts the state's largest collection of "choose and cut" tree farms. The farms spread themselves over private land as far north as Half Moon Bay and south to sleepy Santa Cruz. Most are seasonal, family-run operations, and many have been around for more than a century.

Bear Creek Christmas Tree Ranch comprises 40 planted acres owned by the father-son team of Bruce and Dan Franks.

Alicia, Dan's wife, runs the phone lines and sets up mailing lists with her mother-in-law, Marie. The men work grading parking lots, making signs, cleaning equipment and pulling brush just before their holiday rush. All this is in addition to running their full-time business, the Lexington Hills Disposal Company.

With a lifetime of running the farm and building relationships with their customers, the Franks say the extra work is worth it.

"The Franks [family has] been here for 120 years, and we've watched our customers' kids grow up and start bringing their own families," Alicia Franks explained.

Many of the farm's customers make a full day out of their tree hunt. The Frankses have a petting zoo with goats, llamas, sheep and pigs, plus a gift shop, picnic facilities, a snack stand and wreath sales. "We make [the wreaths] ourselves," said Alicia, who noted they have lots of help--cousins, aunts, brothers, children and grandkids all have worked on the farm.

Like the Frankses, Fred and Terry Jensen also run a tree farm, Crest Ranch. With help from their four married children and seven grandkids, the farm has been in operation for 24 years.

"This place was established in 1948," Fred Jensen mused, "and there have been people who come back regularly for years. On Thanksgiving Day we get the same 200 to 300 people. There's a group who bring up their Thanksgiving dinner and cook it here. We have a huge barn we can use in bad weather. That tradition started with just the families and is now up to about 70 people. One man passed away, and his family memorialized him up here, he loved it so much."

Crest grows more than 30 varieties of trees. including white fir and Scotch pine. The Jensens recently added some little wagons to help people truck their trees out to their cars. Crest encourages family outings, like those taken by Saratogan Ron Vega.

Vega, a fire engineer in Saratoga, has been cutting down his own Christmas trees since he was a boy. He's carried on the tradition with his wife, Debra, and children.

"It's a tradition I grew up with," Vega explained. "I used to go up with my folks every year. Now, it's a family event. We take a picnic basket with breakfast, go early, sightsee and get the perfect tree. We take some photos and get home before the crowds get on the mountain."

Alicia Franks said heading to the mountains to choose a tree gets people in the holiday spirit. "People get in a good mood up there," Alicia explained. "Above us is Byington Winery, so some people come up and get their tree and then go up and taste wine. We really encourage people to come up and just enjoy. We have a family that drives in from Tracy every year, and then there's these 15 guys in a Winnebago--they come every year."

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