Christmas traditions start at Lazy J Tree Farm

For every Christmas tree brought home there is a tradition or a family story.

The Johnson family knows this well.

Their Lazy J Tree Farm, 225 Gehrke Road, whose Christmas tree U-Cut season is now in full swing west of Sequim, has been hosting Christmas traditions and stories for years now.

Some traditions are just getting off their feet, though hearkening back to ancient principles.

Just before Thanksgiving, Mark Silkas and Steve Sahnow stopped by Lazy J to pick up a donated Noble fir to become the downtown Giving Tree, sponsored by the Friends of Sequim outside of the Habitat for Humanity store.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ From right, Mark Silkas and Steve Sahnow receive a donated Noble fir from Ann and Steve Johnson at the Lazy J Tree Farm to be the Giving Tree sponsored by the Friends of Sequim outside of Habitat for Humanity, which is hung with personal care items and presents for passersby, who are also encouraged to leave behind a present.

“They have been kind enough two years in a row to donate a gorgeous Noble fir,” Sahnow said, which is also how long the Giving Tree has existed in Sequim.

The tree went up on Nov. 30 and will remain there until Dec. 21 for people to pick up and drop off toys and personal care items, Silkas said.

The men explained that the Interact Club at the high school had helped the group wrap 500 items for the tree.

“It’s called the Giving Tree,” Silkas said. “But our motto is take what you want but leave what you can.

“We’re trying to encourage kids to ‘Yes, come and get a gift, but also learn about the beauty of giving to somebody else.’”

Other traditions are as old as the U-Cut part of Lazy J.

“I’ve been getting my tree here for 40 years,” said Gerald Wood, who was paying for an 8-foot Noble fir while his wife Robbin looked in the Christmas Barn, Lazy J’s farm store stocked with Christmas items, apple cider and produce, and wreaths for sale on the outside wall.

“When we first started getting them, we had a giant log home with 20-foot ceilings and I was getting 14-16 footers. In those days I was young and powerful,” Wood said laughing, noting that the trees get heavier as he gets older.

“After the kids all left, we down-sized and now we can get by with a seven to eight foot tree.”

He said that store trees disintegrate faster than U-Cut, “because those were cut a month ago. You cut it, you know it’s going to get you through New Year’s.”

Wood said they always get a Noble fir because it’s perfect for homemade decorations from grandparents and great grandparents and giant decorations, like glass snowballs from Mount Saint Helens.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen “I’ve been getting my tree here for forty years,” says Gerald Wood, here with his wife Robbin. Wood says they always get Noble firs because of the spacing of the branches. “The same size of tree starts getting heavier and heavier over the years,” he says and laughs.

Gather round

Ann and Steve Johnson told more stories about Christmas season traditions and occurrences through the years as they warmed their hands at the fire pit, an amenity for visitors and workers alike.

“We have groups of people that come … they know we have a fire pit,” they said. “They bring their whole lunch with them and hang out for hours.”

People buy hot apple cider in the barn and take pictures outside in wood cut-outs.

The U-Cut, they said, has been “here so long people are starting to use it as a family tradition.”

“Everybody’s family has a different tradition,” Ann said. “It’s wonderful.”

The Johnsons shared about a woman whose mother’s plane came in late on Christmas Eve, their traditional day to choose their tree. Those two cut their tree by the headlights of their car and the Johnsons gave them the last wreath that was on the barn “and that was the end of our season,” the couple said.

They sell about 70 wreaths handmade by Ann and two other women each year.

The Johnsons told a story about a “young man that came out and asked if he could decorate a tree, and we wondered, ‘what do you want to do that for?’ Well, we figured it out when he brought his girlfriend out.”

It was there that he proposed they become husband and wife.

Ann and Steve are a romantic couple, too, 10 years newlywed.

They like to go “yard sailing” together. He looks at/for tools and she keeps her eyes open for Christmas lots, which she resells at Lazy J’s Christmas Barn: handmade items, stockings, ornaments, animatronic Santas and their kin, smalls puzzles — all kinds of things, different each year.

“I started doing this when we got married,” Ann said. “I needed something to do while he looked at tools. The only thing I don’t get are artificial trees, tree lights and artificial garlands because we have real trees.”

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ Ann and Steve Johnson talk about some of the stories visitors to the Lazy J Tree Farm’s Christmas U-Cut have brought them through the years at the fire pit which is an amenity outside their Christmas barn.

The trees, the farm and Steve

Lazy J grows and sells Douglas, Noble, Turkish, Grand and Nordman firs. There are 20,000 of these trees, according to Ann, mixed together on 30-40 acres. Approximately, 1,200 are sold each year.

Steve said the trees take time to get started.

“Five years just to get them sort of established,” he said, and then “the fields are ready around 10-12 years, depending on the type of tree.”

The farm also grows “heritage potatoes such as Ozettes, Austrian Crescents and German butterballs,” clumping bamboo, U-Pick blueberries and rhubarbs” in season, according to their website. And, of course, apples, such as Jonagolds, Greenstein, Melrose and Kings.

The story of the farm is intertwined with that of Steve, who has lived his whole life there, as well as raising his son Graham, who now is an essential part of farm operations.

“I’ve got the same phone number I was born with,” he said with a winsome smile.

“My dad started the farm,” he explained. “He bought property in the mid-to-late ‘50s and then planted the first trees in 1960.”

Steve said his father had eight acres in raspberries and 10 in strawberries in the beginning.

The property today is 97 acres, some of which is “Siebert Creek Valley” said Steve, with wild trees and plenty of wild animals, including red-tailed hawks that follow the tiller, a great blue heron seen perching on the pump house roof and deer that gnaw the baby trees.

“It’s nice to have wild land next to the farm,” Steve said.

Lazy J is also host to a variety of large artifacts, like the approximately 6,000 pound concrete elephant, a smaller elephant, a triceratops and a giant octopus which adorn a junction of the farm’s roads.

The artist’s name was Donald Miller, Steve said. The previous owner “wanted them to go someplace where people would see them, and she knew the farm, so she ended up giving them to us.”

His wife, he adds, likes to say, “The farm has the capacity.”

Emily Matthiessen/ Ann Johnson of Lazy J Tree Farm and two other women make Christmas wreaths in a sunlit room of the Johnson home.

After Christmas

Lazy J is known as a local place to purchase compost, top soil and mulch, and as a place to bring yard waste.

Steve says, “I didn’t choose this business, it kind of grew.

“When I was starting years ago, I collected whatever carbon source I could find, hay, wood chips … and used it for building soils. And then, I started taking Christmas trees back after Christmas and then people wanted to bring brush to me.”

Steve found that it made economic sense to buy his own grinder and the business took off from there.

Lazy J takes Christmas trees back for free, regardless of where they were purchased. “It’s a good thing to do,” said Steve. “I want to see the Christmas tree industry be recyclable.”

For more about Lazy J Tree Farm, 225 Gehrke Road, Port Angeles, call 360-457-5950, or visit lazyjtreefarm.com/.

It’s open 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday in winter, and 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, the rest of the year.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen Ann and Steve Johnson stand outside the Christmas Barn at Lazy J Tree Farm on the cusp of their busiest weekend of the U-Cut season. Johnson has spent his whole life on the farm, which has become a seasonal destination for local families for the last forty years.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ Animatronic Mrs. Clauses surrounded by Tomtens greet customers in the Lazy J Christmas Barn. Every year a different selection of gently used Christmas items are offered, as well as tree stands and produce and apple cider.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ A two year old fir tree grows in a field at Lazy J Tree farm. Someday it might be a Christmas tree in the home on the Peninsula.

Emily Matthiessen/ Lazy J Tree Farm owner Steve Johnson has lived his whole life on the farm and says he likes to tell people, “I have the same telephone number I was born with.” In the distance people unload yard waste to be chopped into mulch or turned into compost. Christmas trees are received free of charge, regardless of where they were purchased.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ The pumphouse at Lazy J Tree Farm reflects a calm day before Thanksgiving and the Friday after it, which, owner Steve Johnson says, is usually the busiest day of the U-Cut Christmas farm’s year.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ U-Cut season is in full swing at Lazy J Tree Farm, 225 Gehrke Rd, off Old Olympic Highway.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ Large concrete animals, made by artist Donald Miller, stand their ground at a junction of roads at Lazy J Tree Farm.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ Winter visitors to Lazy J Tree farm pass through a beautiful set of trees, including a giant Pacific madrone, on their way to the Christmas Barn.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ Graham Johnson turns over compost at the Lazy J Tree Farm.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ U-Cut season is in full swing at Lazy J Tree Farm, 225 Gehrke Rd, off Old Olympic Highway.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ Graham Johnson turns over compost at the Lazy J Tree Farm.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ A giant concrete octopus, made by artist Donald Miller, appears to watch the activities at Lazy J Farm’s yard waste, mulch and compost facilities.