KILGORE, Texas — On a cold Sunday this month, families threaded down a familiar dirt road, past ponds and pines, and into a place that had marked the start of the season for generations. They found what they always had at Danville Farms: fires in pits, a snack shack that smelled like roasted marshmallows, and the tractor that would haul a freshly cut tree back to waiting cars. They also found an end.
James and Mary Robinson sold the last tree they’d planted four years earlier and closed the business they started in the early 1980s. “Once you plant the tree, it takes four years to harvest it,” James said. “But once you plant your last tree, it takes four years to get out of the business.” At 82, he said he’s ready to slow down and get to a long list of other things — fishing, a garden, and the honey‑do list Mary has been curating.
Not just a tree lot: a seasonal ritual
Danville Farms was never a convenience purchase. Customers walked into an experience: kids running through rows of pines, s’mores and peanuts warming cold hands, the ritual of choosing, cutting and riding the tractor back to the shop. A good six‑footer ran about $60. For many families — the Griffins, the Adamses and others who kept returning year after year — those trips stitched the holiday together.
Caroline Adams helped unload the last customers’ trees, and Kathy Adams, James’s middle daughter, remembers third‑grade afternoons among the sap and straw. Closing the farm means more than the loss of a business; it means the end of a living scrapbook of photographs and annual jokes. “We might actually get to cook together on Thanksgiving and watch football and do what normal families do,” she laughed, already imagining new rituals.
Customers felt it keenly. Amanda Brown of Gladewater told local reporters she could recount every visit her family had made here — pictures tracking a child’s growth beside the same pines. Other families, like William Griffin’s, who revived their own tradition as parents, said they weren’t sure where they’d go next year.
The broader picture: retirements, renewals and a small boom
Danville’s closure fits a common pattern: tree farms often close when owners retire and there’s no successor in the family. Stan Reed, executive secretary of the Texas Christmas Tree Growers Association, estimates the state loses a couple of farms a year to retirement, even as roughly 10–15 new operations open annually. The turnover doesn’t spell decline so much as transformation.
Interest in real Christmas trees in Texas has actually climbed. An analysis from Texas A&M AgriLife found real‑tree purchases rose about 26% between 2017 and 2022, and newer farms — like the nearby Solstice Tree Farm that the Robinsons recommended to customers — are filling different niches and bringing younger people into the trade.
At Danville, business grew slowly at first; James remembers being thrilled to sell 100 trees in the early years. Decades later, the farm drew hundreds on a single weekend, including busy Black Friday crowds that turned a harvest tradition into a seasonal destination. That same shopping surge online and in stores is part of the November landscape — a context that now includes both holiday outings and bargain hunting (many shoppers balance traditions with sales events, including early Black Friday deals and tech promotions). For some, the end of one physical tradition may mean more time for other seasonal activities — or simply more shopping from home as, for example, MacBook Air deals surface during the holiday rush.
Ending by choice
When the Robinsons weighed options — sell the land, find an outside manager, or let the farm end on their terms — they chose to close. The business had already provided for their children, who pursued careers outside farming. The family letter to customers captured the tone: gratitude for “endless hayrides, pine straw in our britches, sticky faces from pine sap and candy canes” and for the “love and joy” visitors brought for more than four decades.
There’s a gentle dignity in that decision. Rather than hand the enterprise to someone else or keep it limping along past their energy, James and Mary stopped while the farm still felt like itself — warm fires, busy kids, and the steady thud of boots on pine needles.
Visitors left with trees and memories. The Robinsons left with a full life and the quiet plans of people who have farmed and raised a family: a garden to tend, a fishing hole to visit, and the freedom to spend a Thanksgiving without worrying about wreath inventory.
Neither the farm nor the memories will vanish immediately. Families will carry photographs and stories forward; new farms will try to recreate the mix of work and wonder that made Danville special. But for now, the gate is closed, the tractor put away, and a piece of East Texas Christmas history has been bookmarked for recollection.