HEBRON — Heavy snow on Thanksgiving Day was a boon not only for ski areas, but also for Christmas tree farms in Franklin and Oxford counties. Some opened for the season on Friday; others, like Roland and Mindy Godbout, are only open on Saturdays and Sundays.

The Godbouts raise cut-your-own balsam fir Christmas trees in Hebron at their Longmeadow Farm at 121 Station Road. After opening for the season on Saturday, they are open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Mindy Godbout said Friday that they’re anticipating a good business season.

“We’re off to a busy start,” Roland Godbout said on Saturday after helping several customers get their trees.

“Last year, we sold more trees than we had anticipated,” Mindy Godbout said. Which speaks to the power of Facebook and word-of-mouth since they don’t advertise.

Godbout said she and her husband have only been selling Christmas trees for three years, but planted them 10 years ago. Her father used to sell Christmas trees at a farm that has 3,000 Christmas trees in the ground.

This year will be a shorter season where Thanksgiving came later in the month, but the bountiful snow that fell Thursday “makes it more festive,” she said.

The Godbouts trees fared well during the growing season, some of which grew more than others, Mindy Godbout said. But seedlings suffered, Roland Godbout said.

“For the younger ones, I had probably a higher than average mortality rate,” he said. “But overall, the big ones seemed to do well.”

Roland Godbout said he could have done without the foot of snow they received because it’s hard for customers to trudge through it to get to a tree. But Adam Dyar of Strong, who was working Friday at McClure’s Tree Nursery at 251 Salem Road in Kingfield, said the snow put customers in the Christmas mood. More than a foot fell in southern western Maine, about half that north of Farmington.

“We got 6 inches of nice and fluffy snow,” Dyar said. “Snow makes for an earlier season for us, because it’s hard for people to get in the Christmas spirit when temperatures are in the 50s in December. With that snow, it creates an early uptick. We’ve been busy today.”

Linden McClure co-owns the farm with his parents, Howell and Linda McClure, who started in 1970. Dyar, 30, and his brother are grandchildren who, with Dyar’s wife, work at the farm, Linda McClure said.

“Our grandsons are taking over most of the care of the trees and are here today setting up trees,” Linda McClure said. “Conditions are wonderful. We have beautiful trees and hopefully, we’ll have a good season.”

Dyar said they had a great season last year that started early and went strong right to the end. They get the Sugarloaf Ski Resort crowd coming up for Christmas, so McClure’s stays open and busy right through New Year’s, he said.

“And because it’s an old business, a lot of our customers are kids of kids of kids,” Dyar said. “It’s pretty awesome.”

He said this year was a great year to grow Christmas trees because of all the moisture. And despite the late winter that continued through calendar spring, Dyar said they were lucky to avoid the frost.

“If the trees bud out early and you have a frost, they can lose a year’s growth,” he said.

McClure’s plants 1,000 to 1,500 Christmas trees annually and offers blue spruce, Fraser and balsam firs and pine. They harvested a few hundred trees on Friday to sell and for wreath-making. People can also cut their own Christmas trees.

Dyar said the Christmas tree industry has shifted from Scots pine to Fraser fir, which are known for needle retention, pleasing scent, good form and branches that turn slightly upward.

And although prices for live-cut Christmas trees have increased this year, mainly due to a new federal tax or fee, Dyar said prices at McClure’s haven’t gone up in years and are staying that way.

“You can still get a 6-foot-tree for $18 here,” he said. “We produce a good, quality product and we’re aware that people have limited means to buy Christmas trees.”

Laurie Weston of Weston’s Farm at 48 River St. in Fryeburg said they started selling their Fraser and balsam fir Christmas trees before Thanksgiving and will continue to Christmas.

“Business has been good,” she said. “We got a lot of snow and it’s good because it puts people in the mood.”

They have a farm stand that’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. where they sell Christmas trees and their cut-your-own is open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Weston said they’ve been selling Christmas trees since the mid 1980s.

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