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You can buy your Christmas tree online
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A Christmas tree cut and ready to move at a tree farm - photo by Herb Scribner
Should you buy your Christmas tree online?

Slate recently pointed to the new trend of buying Christmas trees online, saying its something that not a lot of holiday celebrators do, despite the massive shift to online shopping.

Its amazing, its still not a very well-known thing yet really, even though its been available a lot of years, Wes Brown, the owner of online Christmas tree seller ATreeToYourDoor.com, told Slate.

Brown said he has sold Christmas trees online for the past eight years. New customers continue to act surprised that they can purchase their favorite pine tree over the internet, he said.

Most customers who order online receive their tree within a week of ordering it, Slate reported.

Brown said his company will personally cut down the trees, box them within two days and then ship it out. Most supermarkets cut their trees in October.

Online trees might even be cheaper, depending on the shipping. Most trees purchased online cost about $50, with shipping increasing the price tag to $100-$120, according to Slate.

Buying a tree online may be a welcomed alternative in 2017, given how the scarcity of Christmas trees has driven up the prices this year, according to the Deseret News.

Droughts in North Carolina, along with the Oregon wildfires earlier this year, dramatically decreased the amount of available Christmas trees.

The shortage can also be attributed to the 2008 economic downturn. At the time, fewer people were interested in spending money on trees, so fewer trees were cut down, leaving less space on tree farms for new seedlings to be planted. According to USA Today, Christmas trees take 10 years to grow. The U.S. is now seeing the result of that slim planting season.

Now that the economy has bounced back and more people plan to buy Christmas trees again, we're left with a high demand for trees, and a low supply meaning tree prices are expected to go up, according to WSMV-TV.

Prospective Christmas tree buyers may want to start looking now. Quartz reported that prices for Christmas trees tend to dip the closer we get to Christmas.

Buying a tree two weeks earlier also means two extra weeks of twinkling Christmas lights and the aroma of pine in your living room, according to Quartz. So a trees price isnt just a reflection of quality, but also of a premium placed on the Christmas spirit that comes with it.