With thousands and thousands of acres of evergreen trees all around, you might think that the price of a real, live Christmas tree in Montana would cheaper be than the price of a tree in say Florida or Oklahoma... but you'd be wrong. In fact, new research from the Chamber of Commerce shows that Montanans are actually paying more per tree than most Americans, researcher Amanda Palumbo explains.

“We contacted Christmas tree farms across each state with the most popular kinds of trees that people purchased and we broke down the cost by foot and multiplied it by six to represent a six foot tree,” Palumbo said. “The national average is $59. The average in Montana is just slightly above the national average, which is $63 for a real tree.”

Palumbo said these numbers were gathered from multiple live Christmas tree retailers in each state at the beginning of the holiday season, interestingly, some of the cheapest trees in the country are right next door to Montana.

“New York was the highest, naturally, at $90 for a six foot tree,” Palumbo said. “People in North Dakota are paying the least at $33. Pricing seemed to be kind of all over the map. We didn’t really see any kind of price drop if you lived in a state that was considered one of the major tree producing states.”

Montana is actually one of the twenty most expensive states to buy a live Christmas tree, but there are some options for the thrifty. Neighboring Idaho has trees for sale for about $20 less, but the best deal is to cut down your own tree. The Lolo National Forest has Christmas Tree harvesting permits for sale for just $5.

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