2 days ago | Advertorial | Ruth Ellsworth

“My eyes can’t find the solder joints any more. This is my last Christmas in the barn.” Why a 74-year-old from New Hampshire is selling his last Heart Birch trees at a special price – online for the first and last time

In an old carriage barn in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, Hollis Thibodeau has built little glowing birch trees with red hearts for 31 winters – and never sold a single one on the internet. On December 20 he switches off the barn light for good. His final 274 trees are going online now. Once. And for less than half the price.

Hollis Thibodeau (74) in the carriage barn behind his house on Main Street. After 31 Christmases, these are the last trees he will ever build.

Bethlehem, November. The first snow is already lying on the White Mountains, and the old carriage barn behind the white house on Main Street smells of wood smoke, hot solder and coffee that has been on the stove too long. On the long workbench lie spools of copper wire and a shoebox full of little red, gold and silver hearts. Along the back wall, dozens of small birch trees glow warm and gold in the gray afternoon. Hollis Thibodeau sits under his magnifying lamp and bends one more branch into shape – the way he has done every winter evening since 1995. But this winter is different. It is his last.

“I’m 74,” he says, and holds a finished branch up to the light. “My eyes can’t find a solder joint the size of a grain of rice any more. And my fingers don’t like the cold out here the way they used to.” He laughs, but only a little. “Marjorie has been telling me for three years it’s time. This year I finally listened.”

And it isn’t only his eyes. “People don’t buy things to keep any more,” he says. “They buy a light-up tree for twenty dollars, it goes dark after one season, and they throw it out. I never built anything I’d want to see in a dumpster.”

31 winters, more than 9,000 little birches – and not one sold online

It started with a tree that fell. For decades, a big old paper birch stood next to the Thibodeaus’ front porch. Hollis proposed to Marjorie under it in 1973. In the winter of 1995 an ice storm brought it down. “Marjorie stood at the window and cried,” Hollis remembers. “Twenty-three years climbing power poles, and that was the one thing I couldn’t fix.”

So he did what he knew. Out in the barn he bent a little tree from copper wire, gave every branch the white bark of a birch, and put a tiny warm light at the tip of each one. On Christmas Eve he set it in the front window. Marjorie took the small glass hearts from her mother’s old ornament box and hung them on the branches, one by one. “She called it her heart birch,” Hollis says. “The name never went away.”

The neighbors saw the little tree glowing in the window. The next December, forty of them knocked on the barn door. For 31 years, that is how it stayed: you bought a Heart Birch at the barn on Main Street or at the Christmas fair in town – or not at all. More than 9,000 of them have left this barn. Not one of them was ever sold online.

Every branch starts as a piece of copper wire. Hollis bends it and wires every tiny light by hand – the same way since 1995.

What makes a Heart Birch so special

At dusk, a Heart Birch turns a dark window into the warmest spot in the house.

At first glance it is the light. When it gets dark, a soft, warm-white glow sits at the tip of every branch, like little candles in the snow. The white trunk and branches catch the glow, and the hearts shimmer red, gold and silver in between. It looks less like a decoration and more like a small winter tree that someone carried in from the woods.

Hollis builds every tree to last. The trunk is a sturdy core that won’t crack, warp or dry out next to a wood stove. Every branch is copper wire that he bends into shape by hand, so you can gently adjust it yourself, and every one gets the white bark look of the paper birches outside. The tree stands about 24 inches (60 cm) tall – big enough to fill a windowsill or a mantel, small enough for a side table. It runs on USB or on three AA batteries. “So you can put it where you want it,” Hollis says, “not where the outlet is.”

And then there are the hearts. Every tree comes with 18 of them – in red, champagne gold, silver and blush pink, some glossy, some glittered. They hang on little loops and come off in a second. “Marjorie’s rule,” Hollis says with a grin. “Nine for the people you love, and nine for the people who love you.” Many customers leave them on from Advent through Valentine’s Day. Others take them off after New Year’s and let the bare white birch glow all winter long.

“Some families have put the same birch in the window for 25 Christmases”

Hollis pulls an old boot box from under the workbench. Inside: Christmas cards, hundreds of them, held together with rubber bands. “From customers,” he says. “Some have written every year since the nineties.” He pulls out one from 2003: “Dear Mr. Thibodeau, your little birch has been in our front window every Christmas since 1998. My husband passed in March. I switched it on anyway. It still glows exactly like the first night.”

The reason is simple: patience instead of speed. A factory turns out a light-up tree in seconds. Hollis takes about five hours for one. He bends every branch, wires and checks every light, and tests each tree for a whole evening before it leaves the barn. “If one light flickers, it stays here,” he says. “No exceptions.”

The back of the barn: shelf after shelf of finished trees. They are the last ones Hollis will ever build.

Why this Christmas is the last one

On December 20, Hollis will sweep the barn one last time, let the wood stove burn out and switch off the light. “There’s nobody to take it over,” he says. “Our son is in Denver, he has his own life. And you don’t learn this from a video. It took me years before the wire did what I wanted.”

On the shelves at the back of the barn there are exactly 274 trees left. His final collection. Hollis does not want them to end up in boxes in the attic. So he made a decision: every last tree goes out at a clear special price – less than half of what he normally charges at the barn. “I don’t need to get rich off the last ones,” he says. “I want them in windows. I want people to drive past a house at night and see one glowing.”

And for the first time in 31 years, they are going online. His granddaughter Kenna (25) talked him into it. “For three decades I told everybody: if you want a tree, come to the barn,” Hollis laughs. “Kenna said, Grandpa, half of your customers moved to Florida. She set it all up on the computer. I build, she clicks.” He shakes his head. “First time online, and the last time too. That’s the deal I made with Marjorie.”

What sets Hollis’s Heart Birch trees apart:

Hollis builds the trees, Marjorie chooses the 18 hearts for every one and tries them on before they are packed. For 31 years, not one tree has left without her.

What customers say about their Heart Birch

“The first present I ever gave my mother that made her go quiet”

Teresa L. (49) from Burlington, Vermont, gave her mother a Heart Birch last Christmas. “Mom is 81 and has everything. I always end up buying her slippers,” she says. “When she opened the box she didn’t say a word. She just started hanging the hearts, one by one, and told me about the little tree she had in her window as a girl. It’s been on her kitchen table every night since. She says it keeps her company.”

The first heart goes on: for many families, a Heart Birch is the present that comes out every December.

Where can you get Hollis’s Heart Birch trees?

Online, Hollis’s trees are only available through County Craft, an online shop that works with small, independent makers. Kenna looks after her grandfather’s little corner of the shop. Only there will you get the original Heart Birch trees from Hollis’s barn in Bethlehem. Mass-produced light-up birches have long been sold on Amazon and in the big-box stores. From across the room, some of them may look similar. Up close – and after the first winter – they have nothing to do with Hollis’s work.

Only until December 20 – then the barn goes dark

“By the 20th I’d like every last tree to be standing in somebody’s window,” Hollis says, and wraps a finished birch in tissue paper. “After that, it’s really over.” He looks out at the snow on Main Street. “Thirty-one Christmases. Not bad for a lineman.”

If you would like one of the original Heart Birch trees from Hollis’s final collection, don’t wait too long. Since word got around that this is the last batch, the orders have been coming in faster than Kenna can pack them. With the special price and the Christmas rush, the remaining 274 trees are not expected to last until the 20th.

It is the last chance to bring a real handmade Heart Birch into your home – before the light in the old barn on Main Street goes out for good.

Our verdict

The Heart Birch is the kind of Christmas piece people fall for the moment it lights up – and then bring out again every December for years. It is built by hand in a barn in New Hampshire, it glows warm and soft, it goes anywhere thanks to batteries or USB, and the 18 hearts make it feel like a little family tradition from the very first evening.

A piece with real heart: carefully made, thought through, and with 31 winters of experience in every branch. Thank you, Hollis – and thank you, Marjorie!

Readers love their Heart Birch trees

Photos sent in by readers.