The Christmas season, for people who celebrate, tends to be full of traditions. Maybe it’s watching the same corny holiday movies every year. Maybe it’s making Grandma’s special cookies, a yellowing index card with her faded cursive handwriting guiding the way. Maybe it’s carefully placing your favorite ornament in just the right spot on a Christmas tree.

Maybe it’s a Christmas tree you cut yourself that morning. Or if not, maybe that’s a new tradition waiting to happen.

Somewhere between 25 and 30 million Christmas trees are bought every year in the U.S., according to the National Christmas Tree Association. Of the trees sold in Massachusetts, very few are grown here. The ones grown by local farms are often fresher and hold their needles longer, and that is especially true for a cut-your-own tree. Plus buying a tree from a local farm carries all the same economic benefits of buying local food: keeping money circulating and people employed in local communities.

Jeff Kingsbury, who runs Kingsbury Christmas Tree Farm in South Deerfield, has helped thousands of people start or continue traditions of cutting a fresh tree from his fields each year. He also has his own tradition that is a bit unique.

“For regular customers where I have their addresses, I send them Christmas cards,” he says. “Just a little reminder of what we have and what the prices are this year. I have people who say, ‘it’s the first card we get every year, and we’re always so excited for it.’”

Personal touches keep customers coming back. As Kingsbury approaches 40 years of farming Christmas trees, “there are now people who came here as kids, that are bringing their own kids here,” he says.

Kingsbury also taps maple trees and grows berries and vegetables in a big home garden. He sells the produce at the Great Falls Farmers Market, which runs from May to October in downtown Turners Falls. Maple syrup and candies are popular at the farmers’ market, and especially with tree customers eager for holiday gifts.

Christmas trees, though, have always come first for Kingsbury. “I bought the land in 1985, and I planted Christmas trees before I even built my house.” he says.

Today he grows over 2,500 trees growing on three and a half acres. There are stately white spruces, fragrant balsam firs, and blue-tinged concolor (white) firs. The latter are just getting big enough to sell after being planted in the late 2010s.

Planting Christmas trees happens in April, once the snow is gone and maple sugaring is done. Kingsbury does this mostly himself, which means it takes a few weeks.

“We fill every single spot where a tree was cut the year before,” he says. “Some will grow great. Others won’t. I mean, trees are weird. You plant two side by side, and one might reach six feet tall but the other won’t make it to four feet. The weird ones become greens for making decorations. This year, we’re supplying Historic Deerfield with 12 trees’ worth of greens for their wreath-making classes.”

In Kingsbury’s eyes, the hardest part of farming Christmas trees is keeping the younger trees alive, especially in a drought. With droughts becoming more common and extreme as our climate changes, many tree farmers in the Northeast are feeling the impacts.

“Last year in the drought, I know there were farmers down towards Boston losing two-thirds of their trees or more, ” he says, “Even some of their six-footers.”

To protect his trees, Kingsbury recently spent the time, money, and energy running nearly a third of a mile of irrigation piping. It does not guarantee the trees’ survival, but he hopes to give more of his trees a fighting chance to become living-room centerpieces for holidays to come.

For anyone that wants to cut their own tree, Kingsbury Farms lets people visit the farm any time early in the season to tag and claim the tree they want. Starting usually in late November, Kingsbury will leave paper tags on his back deck for people to come, print their name, and leave it on the tree of their choice.

“When you’re ready to take it home,” he says, “come back when we’re open to pay for it and take it. We can cut it for you, but a lot of people really like to cut it themselves.”

For people who prefer to tend a live tree, they have that too. “This year we’ll be selling potted trees that are table-top sized, two-to-three feet tall,” Kingsbury says. “We had a few left over last year, and we planted them in the ground after Christmas and they survived great.”

Pre-cut trees are also available. These are brought in from other nearby farms since he can only grow enough trees for his cut-your-own customers. This year, pre-cut trees are coming from a farm just over the Vermont border near Bennington.

“We try to keep prices reasonable,” Kingsbury says. “It’s $50 for cutting your own tree, no matter the size, tax included.”

Precut trees cost slightly more, with prices varying depending on their height. The farm also offers pre-made wreaths, kissing balls, and other holiday swags, as well as maple syrup and candies. Cash is preferred, but customers can also pay with credit card or Venmo.

Kingsbury Farms will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until Dec. 22, or until all the sizable trees are gone. After all, these trees grow slowly, sometimes taking a decade or more to reach six feet. Christmas tree farmers play the long game, ensuring they have what people are looking for in future years, keeping holiday traditions alive.

Jacob Nelson is communications coordinator for CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture). To learn more about local cut-your-own Christmas tree farms or locally made food and gifts for the holidays, visit buylocalfood.org.