Washington: A few months ago, those who supply America’s homes with fresh Christmas trees were approved for special aid by the US Department of Agriculture to help against the economic ravages of the coronavirus pandemic.Frozen out were the people harvesting their less glamorous industrial cousins: loggers and truckers behind the nation’s construction, paper and furniture-making industries.
Only farmers who provided species like firs and spruces to Christmas tree lots were greenlighted for relief, leaving some feeling like they would be Grinched this Yuletide after an already brutal year.“You see all these other businesses getting all this help from the government, and it’s frustrating," said Thomas Douglass, a fifth-generation logger in.