Press release No. N084 of 22 December 2020
- Denmark accounts for 88% of the Christmas tree imports.
- Gingerbread and red cabbage mainly come from domestic production and harvest.
- Retail sale of china, glassware and household articles over the Christmas season 2019 accounted for a quarter of the annual turnover.
- Families in western Germany are slightly larger than in eastern Germany.
WIESBADEN – Christmas in the corona year of 2020 – this means cancelled Christmas markets, no Christmas parties, and then the hard lockdown one week before Christmas Eve. This is why festively decorated Christmas trees at home will be all the more important for many people. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that just under 88% of the total of approximately 2.3 million fresh Christmas trees imported to Germany in 2019 came from Denmark, its northern neighbour. Roughly 45% of the about 2.0 million Danish trees already arrived in November, the remaining 54% were delivered in December. Domestic Christmas trees are grown on specially created areas outside the forests, in Christmas tree plantations. In 2019, roughly 3,390 businesses grew fir trees on an area of 15,900 hectares in Germany. For comparison: the area for the cultivation of other trees and woody plants in tree nurseries in Germany totalled 18.200 hectares and was approximately of the same order of magnitude.