The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

A ‘winter wonderland of trees’

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Customers flocked to the Christmas tree stand, on the west side of The Shops at Wiregrass parking lot, off of Bruce B. Downs, in Wesley Chapel, to look for a perfect tree for their home for the holidays. Stand owner/operator James Diebold said the Fraser firs are the most popular. Diebold estimates that he will have had around 500 trees come through his tent this season. His trees come freshly cut from Michigan, North Carolina and Tennessee, and they come in many different varieties, such as Douglas firs, Balsam firs, Fraser firs, Black Hills spruce, and a hybrid tree called a Fralsam fir, which is a cross between a Balsam and a Fraser.

After dining at The Shops at Wiregrass during a recent evening out, the Squires family from New Tampa decided to take a stroll through the wonderland of trees, in a parking lot on the west side of the mall. Mom Stephanie touches the needles of a 7-foot Fraser fir, as her husband Brent, left, and daughters 13-year-old Samantha, center, and 8-year-old Siena look on. (Christine Holtzman)
Readying a tree to put on display, James Diebold, the owner and operator of the tree stand at The Shops at Wiregrass, uses a chainsaw to trim the trunk of the 5-foot Fraser fir in order to get it to fit its stand properly. Diebold and his wife, Jennifer, recently sold their Lutz home in order to live and travel in their R.V. In addition to Christmas trees, they are also the owner/operators of a fireworks stand during the New Years and Fourth of July holidays.
Corey Durham, an employee at the Christmas tree stand, carries a 7-foot Balsam fir for customer Cindy Brookins, of Tampa. Since Brookins, who is a nurse at nearby Florida Hospital, was working that evening, she took advantage of the stand’s delivery service to have her tree delivered to her home on the following day.

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