How Christmas trees get from Wisconsin to Florida

Zoom in: The Wisconsin-based Steigerwaldt family Christmas tree farm has sold trees at Countryside High School in Clearwater for 30 years.

• The trees travel 1,700 miles over two days, operations director Jon Andreas told Axios, and workers from the farm move here for a month to sell them.
• (This year, seven of them are living in an Airbnb in Palm Harbor, Andreas said. We demand a reality TV series.)

Here's a glimpse into the trees' journey:

🪴 The harvest starts in November. By that point, the trees are usually covered in snow.

🪚 Workers cut down about 13,000 and bring about 1,200 to Clearwater. Buyers can make special requests ahead of time, and those trees are handpicked by the staff, Andreas said.

🌲 They're sorted by size and grade. One is premium: full branches, no holes. Those are the ones that go to their retail lots.

❄️ The trees are loaded into refrigerated trailers set at about 38 degrees. That, and moisture from the snow, helps them stay fresh.

🚚 Semi-trucks drive them down to Florida, where they're unloaded and stacked in piles to keep them cool.

💃 Workers then put them in stands to start drawing moisture and cut the twine off. It's showtime.