Skip to content

Top Navigation

Midwest Living Midwest Living
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Home
  • Garden
  • Holidays
  • Videos
  • current issue
  • Sweepstakes
  • Road Rally
  • About Us

Profile Menu

Your Account

Account

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Email Preferences
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Help
  • Logout

More

  • Win Your Dream Getaway!
  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Magazine Issues
  • Destinations
Login
Subscribe
Pin FB

Explore Midwest Living

Midwest Living Midwest Living
  • Explore

    Explore

    • 11 Extraordinary Outdoor Travel Experiences to Try This Year

      11 Extraordinary Outdoor Travel Experiences to Try This Year

      Have you ever slept in a treehouse? Paddled by moonlight? Seen the Milky Way? We challenge you to try one of these activities. Read More
    • Meet Five Midwest Cake Creators (and Try Their Recipes)

      Meet Five Midwest Cake Creators (and Try Their Recipes)

      One has conquered the world of plant-based baking. Another runs a microbakery from her home. Two own businesses with their spouses. And the fifth is a James Beard finalist chef. The common thread? Absolutely delicious cakes. Read More
    • The No-Fail Relish Tray Recipe is Here

      The No-Fail Relish Tray Recipe is Here

      For many Midwesterners, holiday feasting kicks off with a relish tray. We dare not mess with an icon—at least, not too much. Read More
  • Travel

    Travel

    See All Travel
    Des Moines' Hottest Food Neighborhoods You Need to Know About

    Des Moines' Hottest Food Neighborhoods You Need to Know About

    Korean egg sandwiches, Australian baked goods,Southeast Asian bing bing wraps—here’s an in-the-know guide to eating your way through this culinary capital.
    • Weekend Getaways
    • Family Travel
    • Around the Region
    • Beyond the Region
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Iowa
    • Kansas
    • Michigan
    • Minnesota
    • Missouri
    • Nebraska
    • North Dakota
    • Ohio
    • South Dakota
    • Wisconsin
    • Free Travel Info
  • Food

    Food

    See All Food
    The Delicate, Spongy Basic Crepe Recipe You Can Master at Home—Plus 4 Ways to Upgrade It

    The Delicate, Spongy Basic Crepe Recipe You Can Master at Home—Plus 4 Ways to Upgrade It

    With encouragement from the owner of a Kansas City, Missouri, creperie, you’ll perfect these delicate pancakes in no time.
    • Comfort Foods
    • Desserts & Baking
    • Breakfast
    • Quick & Easy
    • Chicken
    • Soups & Stews
    • Midwest Favorites
    • Fruits & Vegetables
    • Fish
    • Grilling
  • Home

    Home

    See All Home
    Boost Your Home's Curb Appeal With These Ideas from a Minneapolis Makeover

    Boost Your Home's Curb Appeal With These Ideas from a Minneapolis Makeover

    With fresh paint and a terraced slope, a Minneapolis stucco goes from mousy to magnetic.
    • Quick Decorating
    • Featured Homes
    • Organizing & Storage
    • Outdoor Living
    • Seasonal Decorating
    • Room Decorating
  • Garden

    Garden

    See All Garden
    How to Plant a Rain Garden

    How to Plant a Rain Garden

    Turn a wet trouble spot into a lush and Earth-friendly oasis by capturing the rain.
    • Container Gardens
    • Flowers
    • Featured Gardens
    • Midwest Gardening Calendar
    • Garden Ideas & Inspiration
  • Holidays

    Holidays

    See All Holidays
    Brighten Your Front Door with This Colorful Easter Egg Wreath

    Brighten Your Front Door with This Colorful Easter Egg Wreath

    For this do-it-yourself spring wreath, we bundled inexpensive paper-mache eggs in fuzzy, vibrant yarn.
    • Easter
    • July 4th
    • Thanksgiving
    • Halloween
    • Christmas
    • Valentine's Day
  • Videos

    Videos

    See All Videos
    Chef Jorge Guzmán's Step-by-Step Guide to Making Tamales

    Chef Jorge Guzmán's Step-by-Step Guide to Making Tamales

    Tamales are a project, but many hands—even tiny ones—make lighter work.
    • Brighten Your Front Door with This Colorful Easter Egg Wreath
    • These DIY Orange Beeswax Candles Will Make Your Home Smell Amazing
    • Ring in the New Year with This Glam Star Garland
    • How to Make a Modern Fruit Cake Box
    • An Eye-Catching Oval Treat Box You Can Make
    • Make a Colorful Paper Raffia Wreath to Welcome Fall
    • How to Make a Dried Floral Arrangement
    • How to Make an Easy Pina Colada
    • How to Make an Amazing Pavlova
    • How to Make Pumpkin-Spice Icebox Cake
    • How to Make an All-Butter Pie Crust
    • DIY Pistachio Wheat Stalks for Fall Decorating
  • current issue

    current issue

    See All current issue
    About Us

    About Us

    • March/April 2022 Issue
    • January/February 2022 Issue
    • November/December 2021 Issue
    • September/October 2021 Issue
    • July/August 2021 Issue
    • May/June 2021 Issue
    • Summer 2022 Issue
    • Fall 2022 Issue
    • Winter 2022 Issue
  • Sweepstakes
  • Road Rally
  • About Us

Profile Menu

Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
Your Account

Account

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Email Preferences
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Help
  • Logout

More

  • Win Your Dream Getaway!
  • Give a Gift Subscription
  • Magazine Issues
  • Destinations
Login
Sweepstakes

Follow Us

  1. Midwest Living
  2. Travel
  3. Indiana
  4. Making Memories at an Indiana Christmas Tree Farm

Making Memories at an Indiana Christmas Tree Farm

June 01, 2012
Skip gallery slides
Pin
Warming up for the drive home
Picking a fresh-cut Christmas tree becomes a family memory to treasure at farms such as Dull's in Thorntown, Indiana.
Start Slideshow

1 of 6

Pin
Facebook Tweet Email Send Text Message

O Christmas tree

O Christmas tree

The car doors slam, and we step into the shadow of the barn at Dull's Tree Farm, where the scent of fresh-cut evergreens washes the chilly Hoosier hillside. A V of honking geese pierces the crystalline blue sky, a pleasant echo to the post-Thanksgiving gridlock we left 35 miles south in Indianapolis.For years at Christmastime, our family has hoisted an artificial tree or picked up one of the stacked trees in the parking lots around town. That's been fine, but this year, we want to make new memories, the kind steeped in old-time accents that begin with the farm's Burma Shave-style road signs just off the interstate.Click ahead to read about Midwest Living®'s trip to Dull's Tree Farm. For a list of more Christmas tree farms we love, click the link below.More Christmas tree farms

1 of 6

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 6

Pin
Facebook Tweet Email Send Text Message

Family activities

Family activities

Before families even make it to the rows of trees near Tom and Kerry Dull's signature red barn, kids scamper away to explore the hayloft. They find a straw-bale fort honeycombed with tunnels waiting beneath hand-hewn wood beams.Of course, there's a kitten. And a slide that carries kids in a rush down to the barn floor where there's an animal pen, warm and full of friendly sheep and a dignified llama named Bill. Family-owned Christmas tree farms throughout the Midwest know how to draw repeat visitors during their month-long season by offering simple mugs of cocoa, photos with Santa, horse-drawn wagon rides and gift shops.

2 of 6

3 of 6

Pin
Facebook Tweet Email Send Text Message

Getting in the spirit

Getting in the spirit

At Dull's, visitors start arriving early on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Lindsay and Mallory, a pair of good-natured Percherons, stamp their shovel-size hooves, eager to pull their gray wagon, which flutters with red ribbons and fresh sprays of pine and mistletoe that riders admire (and can get made-to-order in the Wreath Barn).At the Wreath Barn, visitors shop for holiday knickknacks, watch craftsmen cut wooden ornaments with a jigsaw and chat with evergreen artisan Jody Durham. An assistant bank manager, Jody reserves one week of vacation time every year to craft wreaths for Dull's. "It's like therapy; it gets you in the Christmas spirit," she says.

3 of 6

Advertisement

4 of 6

Pin
Facebook Tweet Email Send Text Message

'Just wonderful fun'

'Just wonderful fun'

From somewhere, a tendril of wood smoke drifts in, and the laughs and shouts of families playing in the orderly ranks of trees ring as clear as holiday bells. We head out. The kids need to learn how to cut as close to the ground as possible, so we convene an impromptu family meeting on the damp earth, heads together beneath the fragrant lower branches, giggling and spitting out stray wood chips as we take turns sawing.I lift our tree, a bushy Canaan fir, onto the handcart, and the kids alternate pulling and trying to ride as we make our way back to the barn. On our way, we meet Ann and Jason Hendricks, who started coming here 13 years ago and now bring their kids. "When we find a tree we like, we leave a child there with it and keep looking. You've got to guard them, or they'll be gone," Ann says. "It's just wonderful fun, good trees, and the kids love the peanuts."

4 of 6

5 of 6

Pin
Facebook Tweet Email Send Text Message

Old-fashioned appeal

Old-fashioned appeal

Low-tech but tasty, the free peanuts perfectly suit the old-fashioned atmosphere at Dull's. Visitors also explore authentic log cabins; an ancient, hand-chiseled limestone trough once used to cool beer at a Hoosier tavern; retired farm equipment; and a fascinating gravity-feed corn crib that a Dull family member will brag on if you so much as glance up at it.

5 of 6

6 of 6

Pin
Facebook Tweet Email Send Text Message

Warming up for the drive home

Warming up for the drive home

Later, we retreat, shivering, to Dull's Stone Cabin Inn, a bed-and-breakfast most of the year that serves as a hospitality station during tree season. We sip hot chocolate by the stone fireplace, the dancing flames rekindling life in our numb toes. Our red noses perk to the scent of mulled cider, and old memories stir as new ones unfurl.Outside, visitors who brought their own makings for s'mores become sticky around the fire pit. It's tempting, but this hewn-beam, bough-bedecked coziness wins out. We take time for a game on the 100-year-old checkerboard. Across the way, our tree is ready after its shaking and bagging. But it can wait, lined up neatly with others whose owners, like us, are taking their sweet time warming up for the drive home.For more information: Dull's Tree Farm, 1765 W. Blubaugh Ave., Thorntown, Indiana. (765) 325-2418; dullstreefarm.com

6 of 6

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook

Up Next

    Share the Gallery

    Pinterest Facebook
    Trending Videos
    Advertisement
    Skip slide summaries

    Everything in This Slideshow

    Advertisement

    View All

    1 of 6 O Christmas tree
    2 of 6 Family activities
    3 of 6 Getting in the spirit
    4 of 6 'Just wonderful fun'
    5 of 6 Old-fashioned appeal
    6 of 6 Warming up for the drive home

    Share & More

    Facebook Tweet Email Send Text Message
    Midwest Living

    Magazines & More

    Learn More

    • Contact Us
    • Help
    • Free Newsletters this link opens in a new tab
    • Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
    • Customer Service this link opens in a new tab
    • Renew this link opens in a new tab
    • Advertise this link opens in a new tab
    • Affiliate Program
    • Free Travel Info this link opens in a new tab
    • Special Promotions this link opens in a new tab
    • Sweepstakes this link opens in a new tab
    • Video
    • Home Advisor this link opens in a new tab

    Connect

    Subscribe to Our Newsletter
    Sign Up
    MeredithMidwest Living is part of the Meredith Home Group. © Copyright 2023 Meredith Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policythis link opens in a new tab Terms of Servicethis link opens in a new tab Ad Choicesthis link opens in a new tab California Do Not Sellthis link opens a modal window Web Accessibilitythis link opens in a new tab
    © Copyright Midwest Living. All rights reserved. Printed from https://www.midwestliving.com

    Sign in

    View image

    Making Memories at an Indiana Christmas Tree Farm
    this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.