Visitors also shop in a gift tent overflowing with fall accessories, or enjoy entertainment, food, and craft fairs. Christmas season kicks off in mid- November, when people come to reserve trees. To meet customer requests, Palmer purchases 20 percent of his trees from small fir tree growers in Oregon, where the tree prefers the cool climate to his area's hot, dry weather. The firs receive special treatment upon arrival when they are recut and placed in water. Some customers still prefer his on-farm trees, predominantly Monterey Pine, with some Aleppo and Sierra Redwood varieties making up the remainder.
All trees bear tags that are pulled off and filled out by customers.
The demographic information is later used for the farm's mailing list. In addition to tree selling, he offers a variety of events and reopens his gift tent stocked with Christmas items hand-picked during cross country gift show trips. This season, he introduces a train ride that ferries children around the farm. Palmer also buys newspaper advertising, trades with radio stations, runs radio spots, and submits press releases and calendar items to 70 newspapers and television stations in the area, with reportedly excellent coverage results. He also puts his 3,000 feet of freeway frontage to good use by putting up many freeway signs.