Hawthorn Hills Tree Farm

Our take

Hawthorn Hills reads, on paper, like one of the more family-oriented stops in this research: a petting zoo, a picnic area, free hot cider, and children’s games are all described alongside the tree-cutting itself, and the farm reportedly accommodates school tours by arrangement. If your holiday outing is really about the kids’ experience as much as the tree, this is a farm worth strong consideration — with one significant caveat.

The sourcing here is weaker than most farms in this batch

No dedicated farm website was found anywhere in this research. What’s known comes from a farm directory listing (which includes an owner’s email rather than a business phone system) and a pick-your-own-Christmas-tree site that could only be accessed through cached search results, since a direct fetch of that page returned an error. Neither of those is a current, farm-controlled source the way a live website update would be. That matters practically: the season dates and hours described — Nov. 28 through Dec. 21, Friday through Sunday only, with Friday and Saturday hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. — were resolved from a stated relative rule, but the underlying listing itself may be several years old. This is the most honest thing this record can tell you: treat every specific date and hour here as a starting guess, not a confirmed 2026 schedule.

A narrower weekly window than most competitors

Even setting the currency question aside, the described pattern — open only Friday through Sunday — is narrower than many farms in this research that operate daily. If your only free time is a weekday, this farm’s described hours won’t work for you at all, so build that into your planning regardless of which year the dates ultimately turn out to reflect.

What makes it appealing when it is open

The activity list is genuinely a step up from a bare-bones tree lot: a petting zoo and free hot cider are two amenities not commonly listed elsewhere in this research, and the option for school tours suggests the farm is set up to host groups, not just individual families. Only two tree species were confirmed — Scotch Pine and White Pine — a narrower selection than some larger neighboring farms, so this isn’t the place to go if you want a wide variety to choose between.

Getting there needs extra care

Directions describe the farm as 7 miles west of Red Oak on Old Highway 34, which suggests the listed street address alone might not get you to the actual entrance. Build in extra time, and consider calling ahead for precise directions along with confirming the season is happening as described.

Bottom line

This is a farm with real appeal for families, undercut by the weakest sourcing in this research batch. Call the number on file before you build a plan around any of the specific dates, hours, or even the assumption that the farm is currently operating as this listing describes.