With last year’s Christmas tree sale selling out in mere days after opening, St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Sayville hopes to accomplish the same feat this holiday season.

For the past 50 years, St. Ann’s has been a purveyor of evergreens for Christmas, with volunteers enthusiastically securing trees to the tops of station wagons and SUVs.

The trees are arriving at 6 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 26, and are unexpected to be unloaded by mid-morning for sale to the general public. Nearly 800 trees were ordered this year, ranging from 4-foot tabletop trees, 5-foot, 6–7-foot, 7-9 foot, 10-foot, and half a dozen 12-foot trees.

“The Saint Ann’s annual Christmas Tree Lot is a Sayville tradition going back so far that its beginnings are lost to folklore. Everyone has a different story about when and how it began. But one thing remains the same in all of them: the opportunity to share the Christmas spirit with our neighbors from all along the South Shore (and farther!) is a parish-wide favorite event,” said Fr. Jeffrey Neal Stevenson. 

Last year, St. Ann’s had 756 trees and sold 521 the same day they were unloaded and almost 200 the next day. St. Ann’s has a longstanding relationship with Quaker State Plantation in Pennsylvania. Fr. Jeff said, “We have not been disappointed with a single tree.”

This includes a selection of Douglas and Fraser firs. Douglas fir trees have a pyramidal shape with green to blue-green needles, while the Fraser fir is more slender with its branches turning slightly upward, giving it a more compact look.

Price ranges are expected to be higher than last year’s, given the sharp increase in fuel costs.