A choose-and-cut farm operating since 1996 that explicitly sells until Christmas Eve or 'their limit,' whichever comes first, meaning it can genuinely sell out and close before the season officially ends.
Gaines Christmas Tree Farm has been operating in Harrington since 1996, and the most distinctive thing about its public record is also the most useful thing to plan around: this is a choose-and-cut farm where staff cuts the tree only after you’ve made a selection, rather than pre-cutting inventory to sell off a lot. It also offers dig-your-own living trees that can be replanted, plus advance tagging if you want to reserve a specific tree before the main season gets underway.
The farm’s stated policy is to sell “until Christmas Eve or their limit,” whichever comes first. That’s worth reading carefully: it’s not saying the farm is open through Dec 24 in every case, it’s saying the farm might close well before that date if it runs out of trees. Combined with a choose-and-cut model rather than a large pre-cut lot, that suggests a real, finite supply rather than an operation built to handle unlimited late-December demand. If Gaines is on your list, the honest recommendation is to go early in the season — ideally at or near the Black Friday opening — rather than treating Christmas Eve as a safe fallback date.
This is a thin record, and it’s more useful to say so plainly than to guess. Hours, days open, tree species, and pricing were not found in any available source, including the Delaware Dept. of Agriculture guide and the regional roundup used to build this profile. That’s not a sign of a disreputable farm — plenty of small, family-run operations don’t maintain a detailed public presence — but it does mean this page can’t tell you what a tree costs, what species you’ll find, or exactly what time to show up. A phone call to 302-398-0185 is the only reliable way to close those gaps before you drive out, and it’s a more useful step here than at almost any other farm in this batch, given how much is genuinely unknown.
Given how much of this record is blank, the more useful approach is to treat Gaines as a call-first destination rather than a stop on a broader farm-hopping day. If a farm has already sold its stated limit for the season, showing up early in the day won’t change anything, so the call needs to happen before you commit the drive out to Harrington, not after. The dig-your-own living tree option is also worth asking about specifically when you call, since it’s one of the few concrete offerings documented here and it may run on its own separate availability from the cut trees, especially once the farm gets closer to selling out for the year.
The season is expected to run Black Friday through Christmas Eve, Nov 27 through Dec 24, 2026, based on the farm's usual pattern. Given the farm's own stated risk of selling out early, visiting sooner in that window is the safer bet than later.
Not documented. Hours, days open, and tree species are all unlisted, so there isn't enough here to estimate how long a typical visit runs.
Not documented in the record.
Not documented in the record.
Not documented.
Skip planning a visit here for the days right before Christmas without calling first, since the farm explicitly sells until Christmas Eve or its inventory limit, whichever comes first — it can close early in a given year.
Turning Pointe Farm in Hartly and Schreppler's Fir Tree Acres in Magnolia are also in Kent County and have more documented species and amenities if Gaines' thin public record leaves you wanting more detail before committing to a visit.
Not documented. No pricing was found anywhere for this farm; call 302-398-0185 to ask before visiting.
Not necessarily. The farm sells until Christmas Eve or until it reaches its inventory limit for the season, whichever happens first, so it can close early in a given year.
Yes — dig-your-own living trees that can be replanted are available, in addition to the standard choose-and-cut option where staff cuts your selected tree.
Not documented. No source listed specific species for this farm, so it's left unconfirmed rather than guessed.
November 27 – December 24, 2026.
Pricing was not published when we last checked.
Yes. It's choose-and-cut (staff cuts it for you).
1948 Hopkins Cemetery Road, Harrington, DE 19953, in Kent County. It is one of 13 farms we track in Delaware.
We track 13 farms in Delaware, 6 of which let you cut your own tree. The farm has not published a starting price, so it cannot be compared on cost — call before you budget.
Its season runs about 28 days against a regional average of 27, so it is broadly in line with the rest of the region.
There are 13 other farms we track in Kent County. All Delaware farms →
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Checked September 2026.