Kerises celebrate farm’s 15th anniversary
Shop hosts family festivities starting this weekend
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer

JEFF GRANIT staff Maggie Keris, an Allentown resident, arranges a holiday display in her Christmas Shop, located on her family’s farm called Keris Christmas Tree Farm on Route 524.

How long does it take to make a dream a reality? Allentown’s Keris family would say just about three decades.

It was always a dream of the Kerises to have local families make visits to the Keris Christmas Tree Farm & Christmas Shop part of their holiday traditions. What many of those who now visit the farm annually may not know is that the Kerises started planting that dream about 30 years ago.

Although the Christmas tree farm, located on Route 524 in Allentown, is celebrating its 15th season of selling Christmas trees this year, the dream began in 1963 when Stanley Keris worked at the Farmer’s Market in Trenton selling Christmas trees, according to Stanley’s son, Joe.

“My father always wanted to start his own tree farm,” Joe Keris said. “But it wasn’t until 1977 that my father and I planted the first tree here.”

PHOTOS BY JEFF GRANIT staff The manager of Keris Christmas Shop in Allentown, Maggie Keris, shows the vintage fabric on a Santa Claus she made from porcelain and collected items.

The planting alone took four years to complete. Once planted, the trees took approximately 10 years to mature.

Stanley passed away in 1993, but not before the first tree was harvested on the farm.

The Keris family harvested its first Christmas tree in 1990. Joe Keris remembers the event as a moment in his life that brought him “a real sense of satisfaction.”

“The first 10 years were tough,” Keris said. “We put a lot into this farm and got nothing out of it in a sense. We just had to set our sights on a goal and work to achieve it.”

Today, Keris owns and operates the tree farm, while his wife, Maggie, manages the Christmas shop. Currently, Keris Christmas Tree Farm grows 25,000 trees and sells more than 1,000 trees during the holiday season.

Joe said his father still remains an influence on the farm.

The Christmas Shop on Keris Christmas Tree Farm on Route 524 in Allentown will celebrate its 15th selling season this year.

“On the mornings when it’s raining or I just don’t want to get out of bed, I hear him telling me to get to work,” Joe said. “I always get up because I know he would.”

A plaque in the Christmas shop reminds patrons of the legacy.

“This Christmas tree farm stands as the living legacy of Stanley Keris, without whose perseverance, devotion and love for his family and nature never would have become possible,” the plaque states.

Even after the first trees were harvested and sold, the Keris family did not have a fully realized dream.

Maggie Keris, who has dabbled in antiques and interior design all her life, also had a vision of a Christmas shop on the property.

After the first two years of selling trees straight out of the field, the family created that Christmas shop.

Among the handcrafted items including pottery, Maine balsam fir decorative pillows and vintage postcard ornaments, Maggie also sells wreaths, roping, grave crosses and blankets fashioned out of the greens of the season. In addition, she said, the shop sells Fraser fir wreaths that keep well after Christmas.

If the three fireplaces hung with stockings don’t warm the shop’s patrons, then the hot mulled apple cider will most likely do so. Customers can drink the cider while browsing through thousands of holiday ornaments, cherubs, Santas, toys and other gift items such as Fontanini nativity sets.

Maggie not only decorates the old wooden hardware store display cases where she keeps the merchandise, but she also creates one of the shop’s best selling items.

Throughout the year, she seeks out and purchases vintage clothing and small antiques, baubles and toys of yore to create old-fashioned Santa Clauses with ceramic heads, which she fires and paints herself. The 2- to 3-foot-tall St. Nicks sit nestled among all the other decorations in Maggie’s shop awaiting the right person to take them home.

Maggie also makes bows and does custom greenery work for local families and businesses.

Planning for Christmas is a year-round endeavor for the Keris family and their three full-time employees.

“I purchase things for the shop all year-round,” Maggie said. “My sister comes up from Florida during the fall, and we do all of the display work in the store. I decorate all of the trees myself.”

“Right after the holiday,” Joe added, “we pull the tree stumps out of the ground and ground the stumps for mulch.

“We replant in March and then tend to the trees all summer long until the winter. when we open the shop again,” he said.

Despite having the Christmas spirit throughout the year, the Kerises and their daughters, Marisa, 20, and Jenny, 15, who also help out on the farm, never lose sight of the true meaning of the holiday.

“We try to keep the holiday traditional and start celebrating on Christmas Eve,” Maggie said.

“We visit a lot of our friends and family,” Joe said, “and just use the time at the end of the year to look back and be thankful for all that has happened.”

When asked what kind of tree she likes to put up in her house, Maggie said, “a Douglas fir.”

Now that their own dream has been realized, the Kerises can focus on making other people’s Christmas wishes come true.

At Keris Christmas Tree Farm, patrons can enjoy a stroll through the thousands of Douglas fir, blue spruce, white pine, Norway spruce, Canaan fir and concolor fir trees. The family offers the tools for patrons to choose and cut their own trees.

“We pride ourselves on service,” Joe said. “When you come to our farm, we will help you pick out the perfect tree. We offer services for all types of people who may think for one reason or another they can’t get a real tree.”

Joe said farm employees will try to put forth every effort to help patrons with special needs.

“We can arrange for transportation out to the fields,” he said, “and we can even arrange for delivery.”

The Kerises have a tradition every year during the first two weekends of December, when Keris Christmas Tree Farm & Christmas Shop hosts family festivities. Children can visit Santa Claus in the shop and see performances by the Allentown High School choir and band. The Monmouth County and Mercer County Clever Clovers 4-H clubs will have displays at the farm as well.

For more information, call (609) 259-0720.